Ranger Falls, Green Lake and Chenuis Falls

 We drove up to the Carbon River Entrance of Mt Rainier National Park to hike to Ranger Falls, Green Lake and Chenuis Falls, combined this was an 11 mile round trip hike with an overall elevation gain of 1,600 ft.
The trail starts along the now closed Carbon River Road, we would walk 3 miles up this gentle incline road to the Ranger Falls and Green Lake trail.

 Besides the beautiful tall trees here, we saw lots of woodland wildflowers in bloom.

 There was also an abundance of ferns and moss.

 These twin flowers growing on the side of a large tree caught my eye,

A view of the Carbon River and Tirzah Mountain can be seen shortly before the turn off to Ranger Falls and Green Lake

 It is another mile with 600 ft gain up to Ranger Falls and additional 0.7 mile with about 400 ft of gain to Green Lake.
Lot of beautiful moss covered trees, ferns and wildflowers line this trail.

 Ranger Falls has an 172 foot drop

 Further up the trail, a log bridge crosses Ranger Creek.

 The water in Green Lake was so still, we had a gorgeous reflection of the trees lining this lake.

 We had to be careful as we ate our lunch, as there was a very bold chipmunk racing around the logs and our feet,

 We hiked back down to the closed  Carbon River road, and went an additional 0.5 mile along the road to find the trailhead to Chenuis Falls. We were happy to see that the log bridge over the Carbon River was in!
It is 0.2 miles to Chenuis Falls from here.

Here the Carbon River is fast, deep and full of glacier silt. There were 3 additional log bridges over the river bed, only two of them had small amounts of water under them and the other was at a currently dry spot. 

 At the far end of the river bed where two additional log bridges. The forest in this section of Mt Rainier National Park is very lush.

Lower Chenuis Falls (168 ft of slides) fall into a beautiful green pool,

From here, we returned across the Carbon River on the log bridges and hiked 3.5 miles back along the closed Carbon River Road to the parking area.








some of the flora and wildflowers we saw in bloom along the trail today:

    

   

 

 

Snow and Gem Lakes

 We drove up to Alpental off of I-90 at Snoqualmie Pass to hike up to Snow Lake and Gem Lake in the Alpine Lake Wilderness. This was 10.5 miles round trip with an overall elevation gain of 2,500 ft. We saw wildflowers in bloom mostly at Snow Lake and on the lower trail.

 Lots of thimbleberry blossoms along the trail. Small waterfall coming off the cliff side.

 The bleeding hearts were abundant.

 A stream crosses this section of the trail, we were able to get across easily.

 View of Bryant and Chair Peaks to the northwest.

Some beargrass in bloom.

 About 2 miles from the trailhead, the trail reaches a saddle before dropping down into the Snow Lake Basin. At the saddle is a short boot path up to some boulders where we had this amazing view of Snow Lake below.

 From the saddle the trail descends about 400 ft to Snow Lake, there were some nice views of Snow Lake from these switchbacks.











About 1/2 mile down from the saddle, there is a short path to the lake shore on the southeast side of Snow Lake, The water was so still in the morning, we had beautiful reflections of the mountains in the lake. Gem Lake is located above the lower ridge across Snow Lake.

 Small creek and pond located near the shore of Snow Lake

This upper creek and pond is next to the trail that goes around Snow Lake.

 nice views as we continued hiking around Snow Lake












a short ways further leads to this beautiful viewpoint:

 The color of the lake and the reflections in Snow Lake were so gorgeous this morning.

 a large log crosses above the outlet of Snow Lake












my favorite view of Snow Lake is along this log crossing:

 The trail wanders up the hillside on wide switchbacks leading up to Gem Lake, at times we had nice views looking out over the Middle Fork of the Snoqualmie River Valley, seeing distant mountain peaks.

 We also had lovely views of small ponds by the trail and Snow Lake below.

 We could see small ice floes in the far west end of Snow Lake below us.

 When you reach the large talus field, you know you are close to crossing the saddle into Gem Lake basin.

 There was ice floating in Gem Lake

 Wright Mountain reflecting in Gem Lake

 Gem Lake was fabulously gorgeous today:

 Wide angle view of Gem Lake from the north side.

 We found a nice spot on the shore to sit and eat our lunch, enjoying this view.

 Heading back down from Gem Lake, Snow Lake in the far distance.

 small stream along the trail between Gem and Snow Lakes












some of the wildflowers we saw in bloom along the trail today: