The Mountain was out......

In the Seattle-Tacoma area, when you speak of "the mountain" you are speaking of Mt. Rainier. On cloudy days you don't see it, but when the sun is shining it dominates the landscape whether you are in downtown Seattle or one of the suburbs or anywhere in the area. I have photos from the Tacoma side, also and it looks a less snowcovered and you can see the volcano shape on their side. Post that later in the week. That beautiful snowcaped peak is just unmistakable.
We went up the mountain to the Sunrise picnic area and I'm always in awe of the scenery and how it changes and the beauty of it. A lot of snow up on that mountain!

As you head up the mountain you go through heavily forested areas and curvy roads where you can't stop. There were some lovely creeks along the way, but we didn't stop at any. I think I have some photos from another trip of my young children in Frying Pan Creek. These purple flowers along the road caught my eye and my sister says they are Fireweed. Called that because they are the first thing to come back after a fire.
The higher you go the more the flowers change. It was a perfect time of year for wildflowers on the mountainsides. White, purple, yellow, specks of red....very colorful.
There is one really nice overlook area where you can stop and get some nice photos.

Down one side from the overlook is this lovely lake. NOTE: Katney, who lives in Washington and volunteers at Rainier, says this is Sunrise Lake and the overlook is Sunrise Point. Thanks, Katney!)

Flowers everywhere.....I'm still trying to identify all of them. These are clusters of little purple daisy-like flowers.

This flower is all over the place and my best guess using the brochure we picked up is Pearly Everlasting.

Hillsides just covered in flowers.

A view from the picnic area away from the snowcap towards other peaks.

Beautiful picnic areas with lots of flowers all around.

Paths lead here and there with beauty in all directions.

The tall trees just amaze me when I stand and look straight up their height. Moss dripping from limbs.
Clark's Nutcracker.

Beautiful bird that perched on a tree right next to our picnic table so Mike got a very good shot of it. In my sister's bird book it said that a pair of them might collect 20,000-30,000 seeds and hide them on a south facing hill and come back later and find each one. I wonder who counted that and watched them????

I got his back view from a greater distance. A new bird for me.

This little bird kept going into the trees or down along these rocks. I never did figure out what he is, but maybe one of you that lives out west will tell me. Made me think of a Junco.

Not a very good shot but one with more color to identify him.

A Subalpine Daisy

Scarlet Paintbrush

Pasqueflower seed heads. My sister calls them "dust mops". Good description.

I took a few more flower shots but am still sorting and trying to identify things.