Today is our last day at Mount Rainier. On our way to Box Canyon, we saw another view of the mountain filling the sky.
Box Canyon at Mount Rainer might better be called Slit Canyon. It is extremely narrow and quite deep for its width. Because it is so narrow, the water rushes through the canyon very fast. It is almost all white water.
About an hour after our first clear view of Mount Rainier, we had another chance to see it clearly at Backbone Ridge. While it looks similar to the first photo of the day, the clouds in the second picture, the slightly different angle, and the difference in elevation show that we are in a different place.
We drove to Skookum Falls next. It was difficult to see Skookum Falls because it was at a distance and seemed to be near the end of its water supply for the year. The river it drained to was running very quickly, even with a low water flow from Skookum Falls.
We had planned to drive near the top of Suntop for a long distance view of the surroundings. It was supposed to be a 2 mile hike from the end of the dirt road. Unfortunately, the upper portion of the road was closed for repairs. Because of the closed road, the hiking changed to a seven mile hike. We did not have time for a hike of that length, so we turned around and drove back down.
Our last stop at Mount Rainier was the Carbon River Entrance to the park. It is a rain forest that the park is letting return to its natural state. We saw some elk. We hiked an old and rotting boardwalk trail that just ended in the forest. You could see where the trail had gone before, but it was completely overgrown. There were ferns everywhere. We also saw some places where there had been large trees falling over. The Carbon River was also nearby.
On our way out of Mount Rainier National Park, we crossed a high bridge over a very fast creek. Here are a couple of pictures from the bridge.
We drove to Dupont Washington for the night.