[Slugman]

Yetiman had a couple of days off, so we decided to do some car camping and day hiking in the Corral Pass area Sunday and Monday. We got to the top of the annoyingly bad Corral Pass road at 11 am Sunday, nabbed a campsite with no one else nearby, and immediately took a couple of hours "rest break". Then motivation set in, so the three of us (Yeti, me and Daisy the wonder dog) hoofed it back along the road aways to the Rainier View trail head. It's nice to start out at over 5,600 ft, and soon we were at 6,000 on an exposed, rocky area with a great view of the mountain. Some kids came by and started throwing rocks at each other and using bad language, so we continued along the trail towards Castle mountain. We reached a rocky mini-summit at 6,400 ft, where I photographed the goats from, and set up a nice picnic to enjoy along with the views, which were stunning. There were lots and lots of flowers along the whole trail, really a wonderful show. We hung out up there for quite a while, killing a few mosquitoes when the breeze died down, and killing a few frosty beverages as well. Then it was back to the campground for a bonfire, barbecuing, music, more beverages, a fine sunset, and then star gazing and satellite spotting. Here's the pics from Day 1:

Perched beauty

Magenta Paintbrush

Daisys

Goats!

Cool puffy flowers

Castle mtn

More cpf

Even more....

View from Rainier View

More view from Rainier View

Lamb, sausage, onion, pepper, tomato, pineapple

Day 2 TR and pics to be up in a couple of minutes....

[Slugman]

On Day 2 (Monday) we hiked from Corral Pass to Noble Knob. It's a nice walk, pretty flat in stretches, smooth trail, shady a good part of the way, good views of Rainier. We did the 4 miles from our campsite to the knob in just 2 hours and 15 minutes. That includes several breaks for water, photography, cooling off, etc, so I was happy with the speed. There are so many flowers out right now that the hike is especially nice. We took in the fabulous views from the knob for two hours, then made the return hike in 1 hour 45 minutes. The campground was completely deserted when we got back. After dinner we went back to the Noble Knob trail and walked back a mile or so to see the sunset and Mt Rainer. It was well worth it! We spent another night of fun in the woods, including a midnight "star stroll". More pictures:

Paintbrush

Noble Knob and Knob jr

Yeti, Daisy, knob

back towards yesterday

Sunset

Alpenglow

Last alpenglow zoom

Moon, mountain, tree

Moon and tree

Moon and two trees

Parting shot Tuesday morning

[Curtissimo]

so you didn't enter from the west side road? is this fromthe glacier view wilderness??

[Slugman]

Wrong side of the mountain. We were on the east side, south of Greenwater. It is accessed from Hiway 410.