Milder Moments: Day 18: Mt. Ranier

Unfortunately two members of our traveling circus have sustained life altering injuries the past two days. Yesterday, in a struggle over who was going to carry Lenny the Lizard on the seaplane, Lenny suffered a traumatic amputation of his right leg. He is receiving excellent care, and evidently some much needed fluids, in the backseat though...

Then, this morning a catastrophic accident occured when Scott took a hard, unexpected left turn at 30 mph and Buc*ee went flying off the dash and into my kneecap...

Hoping to do a little reconstructive surgery with some nail glue just as soon as we get back to civilization to buy some.

On the drive to Mt. Ranier we passed this porta potty truck that had a little toilet paper stuck to it's ~~shoe~~

truck. Struck us all as funny...

Mt. Rainier today!!! We could see it from Seattle, but it was still over 90 miles away. It was fun watching it get closer and closer. Once you enter the park you kind of lost it for awhile and couldn't find where it was because the forest is sooooo thick!

Tallest trees I've ever seen outside the Muir Woods. The forest floor is covered in moss and ferns and tall trees....just a narrow two lane road cut through. And, then all of a sudden the forest clears and you'll see it! Of course, at the turn outs you see these signs...

So basically we risked falling off the mountain to get these awesome pics....

We parked a couple of different times to get out and hike a short trail. This one was my favorite, it lead to Christine Falls.

Scott took the kids and hiked down into this massive riverbed. Ranier is an active volcano expected to erupt sometime in the next 10,000 years. But, the real threat isn't eruption, but collapse. The hot inside covered by multiple glaciers creates a steam pit that is corroding on the inside. Geologists say that the greater possibility is that it would collapse in on itself triggering massive mud and rock slides that would wipe out the entire Puyallup valley extending all the way to Seattle. Once you've been here and already seen what's left of prior mudslides and avalanches, you can totally imagine what the devastation might be like.

This was a small bit of a stream, but tons and tons of rocks and entire trees that have at one point been flushed down the mountain by some powerful water and mud.