The Carbon River Entrance at Mount Rainier National Park has recently opened, so we drove up to hike to Ranger Falls and Green Lake, a 10 mile round trip with 1,500 ft of gain. We only saw 3 other hikers along the closed road portion of the hike, and had the Falls/Lake trail to ourselves.
View of the Carbon River from the parking area at the end of the road. There was a nice light layer of fresh snow from last night.
The Carbon River complelely eroded away the road at the park entrance last fall. The park has made a narrow trail through the forest to lead to the old parking area at the entrance. Trail is on the right, road washed away behind the barrier on the left.
Standing at the closed road in the park looking back at where the road once was. We are parked behind the orange barricade in the distance. 
After reaching the old parking area, the first 3 miles are in the forest along the closed Carbon River Road. Shortly before the Ranger Falls trail, we had this lovely view of Tirzah Peak and the Carbon River.
Sun shining through the trees as we hiked up towards Ranger Falls.
The trail goes under this large nurse log.
We saw many icicles along the way today.
More sunshine through the snowy trees.
Ranger Falls is one mile up the trail from the closed Carbon River Road
From the short spur trail, back on the main trail we continued up another 0.8 miles toward Green Lake.
Ranger Creek as we neared the lake.
log bridge over Ranger Creek
It was so peaceful at Green Lake, we had a nice lunch break here before returning.
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