Paradise

More photos from the Paradise area of Mt Rainier National Park. From the National Park Service website: "When (early settler) James Longmire’s daughter-in-law, Martha, first saw this site, she exclaimed, 'Oh, what a paradise!'"--and thus the site was accurately named. Above, looking down the meadow with deer in the foreground and Paradise Inn behind them.
Map of the Paradise Area trails, stretching up to the Nisqually Glacier, which we did not have time to see. The trail to Camp Muir, base camp for Mt Rainier summit attempts, also begins here. Trails range from pleasant, paved strolls to snowfield trudges.
The charming Paradise Ranger Station, standing straight and tall.
Beautiful, silky cloud formation seen over Tahoma from the meadow.
A peak at the lodge through the trees. This sub-alpine region is the tallest drivable point in the park. It's below the treeline, but the trees have started to shorten.
Baby conifer spouting out the trail side.
A cautious (but very curious) fawn hiding in the trees.
View of the Inn and parking lot from higher up on the trails.
Cutting of the trails destroys protected meadow.
A great look out for taking photos of the Nisqually Glacier (above) on Tahoma. We were there before the snowfalls, but Paradise is one of the snowiest places on earth, receiving 680 inches annually. I would love to go back and stay at the lodge to do some cross country skiing and snowshoeing.
A flowery hillside.
Alpine wildflowers.
More meadow views.
More deer. They weren't frightened of us at all! Living here, they are used to being protected. We're more of an annoyance than anything.
At the risk of sounding like a broken record, I'll say again what a wonderful, beautiful place this is. And we only explored a portion of it--but hopefully will be back again soon.

Pika: Unbridled Cutness

Will you please check out this Mr Pika-Pants. He is the cutest of all wild woodland creatures.

What with his living under rocks.
And his coming out to see if maybe, just maybe, you have some food to give him. These national-park types know what's up.

Descent

More fun pictures from the way back.

Mr Marmot

We spotted this little guy chomping along the trial up Eagle Peak. A marmot is kind of like a beaver of the mountains with scruffier hair and no flat tail.
And he was not afraid of us one bit. He blocked the trail for a good ten minutes before he let us pass.
It was hard to get good pics since these things lay so low to the ground. I wasn't about to get my face in marmot chomping range for the sake of my art. Think about you pet gerbil's big yellow chompers, multiply that times 100, and you've got marmot teeth.
Cute though!
From Wikipedia:

Marmots are generally large ground squirrels. Those most often referred to as marmots ten to live in mountainous areas such as the Alps, northern Apennines, Carpathians, Tatra, and Pyrenees in Europe, the Rockies, the Black Hills, and the Sierra Nevada in the United States, Northern Canada, Deosai plateau in Pakistan and Ladakh in India. However, the groundhog is also properly called a marmot, while the similarly-sized but more social prairie dog is not classified in the genus Marmota but in the related genus Cynomys.

Marmots typically live in burrows, and hibernate there through the winter. Most marmots are highly social, and use loud whistles to communicate with one another, especially when alarmed.

Marmots mainly eat greens. They eat many types of grasses, berries, lichens, mosses, roots, and flowers.

Thanks, Wikipedia! Way to go ground squirrels!
This guy definitely was not whistling any alarms. We were extremely low on his priority list. And as you can see he was going to town on those greens.
However, Wikipedia, I do have to say that this was our second marmot sighting, the other being near Estes Park in Colorado, and as an marmot expert I do have to say that on neither occasion did we spot these highly-social ground squirrels with a buddy in sight.

Check Out This Chipmunkersons

I took these pictures near the top of Eagle Peak while he was stuffing his pousches.
He totally wasn't afraid at all!
He was hanging out with Mr Marmot.
Cute little guy.