Pinnacle Peak Saddle

For our second hike along the Stevens Canyon Road at Mt Rainier National Park today, we hiked up the Pinnacle Peak Trail to the saddle and back, about 3 miles round trip with 1,150 ft of gain.

This is a steep trail that starts in the forest, we saw lots of wildflowers along the way, very wet after a day and night of rain.

some views along the upper portion of the trail (Mt Rainier remained in the clouds all day)

View of Pinnacle Peak and the flower filled meadow below from the other side of the saddle

We saw several pica and marmots along this trail today, some zoom phofos below

sosme wildflowers seen along the way today:

Basalt Gardens/Basalt Pillars

We drove to an area called Basalt Gardens and Basalt Pillars near Vantage WA. These are across the Columbia River and just south of the Sand Hollow Campground on Hwy 243. There is a small pullout at Basalt Gardens and a dirt road on the other side of Basalt Pillars with room to park. This area has wandering and dead end trails, none of them appear to be official. An interesting area with wildflowers in bloom. We started at the pullout at Basalt Gardens and did a 3 mile loop with 265 ft of overall gain covering both what we think are the Basalt Gardens and Basalt Pillars. Photos along the loop we did.

Next, we drove to the end of the road at Basalt Pillars and made a short 0.25 mile loop overlooking the Columbia River.

Some of the wildflowers seen in these areas:

one of the many lizards we saw along the trail today