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:

Bench Lake and Snow Lake

We did two short hikes along the Stevens Canyon Road at Mt Rainier National Park today. First, we hiked the Bench Lake/Snow Lake Trail, 2 miles round trip with about 600 feet of overall gain.

This trail goes through both meadows and forest. We found a few wildflowers in bloom and lots of ripe huckleberries

View overlooking Bench Lake, we decided not to go down to the lake, as there would be no mountain reflection in it on this cloudy day.

Beautiful blue Snow Lake

zoom of a grouse on the trail as we headed back to the trailhead

some of the wildflowers seen along the trail this morning: