Christine, Narada and Ruby Falls

On my way to Reflection Lakes at Mt Rainier National Park, I stopped at Christine, Narada and Ruby Falls, all short walks. There are two pullouts on either side of the bridge where Christine Falls is located. Upper Christine Falls can be seen along the side of the road on the bridge.

From the pullout on the upperside of the bridge is a very short path where lower Christine Falls can be viewed.

Further up the road is a parking lot for Narada Falls, the trail is about 0.25 miles with 100 ft of loss/gain

Shortly after turning onto the road going towards Reflection Lakes and Stevens Canyon, the road crosses a bridge over the Paradise River, soon there is a very small turnout on the right side of the road. From here it is a short walk back towards the bridge where a trail leads down, eventually to Narada Falls. Ruby Falls can be seen shortly along the trail as it drops below the bridge.

view at the top of Ruby Falls as seen from the trail

View looking upstream from Ruby Falls of the Paradise River from the bridge

Silver Peak

We drove up to Windy Pass at the junction of the Pacific Crest Trail (PCT) on FR 9070 near Hyak to hike up to Silver Peak, 5.3 miles round trip with 1,900 ft of overall gain. The first 1.7 miles is a gentle hike heading south on the PCT with abour 500 ft of gain. It was chilly at the start of our hike, some frosty sitka mountain ash.

View of Mt Catherine from near the trailhead

After a short walk through a meadow, the PCT section is all in the woods

View of Tinkham Peak through the trees

1.7 miles from the trailhead there is a large cairn on the right marking the steep boot path up to Silver Peak, view of some distnat peaks through the trees

View of Silver Peak through the trees

After passing the side trail to Abiel Peak, the trail drops for a short distance and opens up with view of the false peak of Silver Peak, there is a steep climb up through a talus field

View of Tinkham Peak as we head up the Talus field

The trail goes around the east side of the false summit, first photo looking back south towards Abiel Peak and Mt Rainier, second photo Silver Peak, here the trail gains 600 ft in 0.3 miles

I stopped many times to take photos on this steep climb, some areas needing to use my hands: view towards Mt Catherine and Keechelus Lake; looking back to our trail to the south; zoom of Mt Rainier; the steep climb ahead of us to the summit

Views from the top of Silver Peak

On our way back down from Silver Peak, such a beautiful day!

We saw some wildflowers, lots of ripe huckleberries, fungi, and some fall color along the trail today:

Hurricane Hill

It was very smoky as we drove up to Hurricane Ridge in Olympic National Park this morning. The forecast was for clearing of smoke, so we decided to see what it was like at Hurricane Ridge. The west side of Hurricane Ridge and Hurricane Hill had blue skies! We drove to the Hurricane Hill trailhead and did the 3.2 mile round trip hike with 650 ft of gain. The smoke was blowing our way on the way down, so we wore masks until we were back to the car. Beautiful! Deer seen on the side of the road as we drove up to Hurricane Ridge.

From Hurricane Ridge the views to the southeast were very smoky, while to the west the skies were blue (zoom of Mt Olympus to the southwest)

Views along the Hurricane Hill Trail, smoky skies and Mt Angeles to the east

The Bailey Range to the west

Hurricane Hill to the north

Zoom of Mt Olympus from the top of Hurricane Hill

View to the northeast from the top of Hurricane Hill

some of the grouse on Hurricane Hill

View of the top of Hurricane Hill from down the trail on the east side

Pano to the south as we head down Hurricane Hill

Chipmunk along the trail

There was lots of pearly everlasting in bloom along the trail today, we also saw some other wildflowers in bloom: