PARADISE WILDFLOWERS - *Sundays with Sunny and Friends!
FULL DAY TOUR
Sunday, August 17th, 2008
Email experience@evergreenescapes.com or call 206-650-5795 for reservations
Tour Length: 11 Hours
Tour Code: ES07
Pick-Up: Downtown Seattle
Departing: 8:00 a.m.
Returns: 6:45 p.m.
Activities: Wildflower and Wildlife Viewing, Photography, Hiking, & Educational Sightseeing
Difficulty: Easy to Moderate
Carbon Footprint:
Min No of Passengers:
Inclusions:
Downtown Seattle pick up and drop off; highly qualified and knowledgeable naturalist guide; travel in luxury vehicle; excellent casual lunch; selected fruit, energy bars, soda, juice, and tea; all entry and parking fees; and comprehensive commentary.
Description:
Enjoy this Sunday with tour guide Sunny Walter, professional wildlife photographer, nature photo tour leader, and co-author of “Washington Nature Weekends, 52 Adventures in Nature.” Our accompanying naturalist and hike leader is Gretchen Graber.
What We Will See Today
Today we will visit Mount Rainier’s Paradise area to see the lush subalpine meadows of Paradise Park, which host a display of wildflowers unequaled anywhere. Be sure to bring your camera, a close-up lens if you have one, and a polarizer to cut the glare on the flowers.
A number of paved trails traverse the wildflower meadows of Paradise Park; most start near the Henry M. Jackson Memorial Visitor Center. We will hike up Dead Horse Creek Trail for magnificent views of Mt Rainier and luxurious meadows of lupine, paintbrush, and other wildflowers at their peak bloom (2.5 miles r.t., 400 ft elev gain). Along the way we also expect to see marmots and several bird species. Be sure to bring your binoculars. If we have time, we will take a 0.75 mile detour along the Moraine Trail on the way down to see mosses and flowers of the wetter areas.
For those who want an easier walk, we will stroll the level 1.2-mile Nisqually Vista Trail for brilliant displays of flowers plus mountain and glacier views. If we are lucky, we may see the Fairy Pond framed by Jeffrey's Shooting Stars.
At noon we will set up in the picnic area just down from Paradise to enjoy our delicious organic lunch platters from “On Safari Foods.” Restrooms are available and scenic mountain vistas abound.
After lunch we will take the Skyline Trail east from Paradise Inn to Myrtle Falls, hoping to see a dipper bobbing in the water. Ptarmigan have been seen along this path. We will meander across the meadows to an area less crowded and up a long switchback to the ridge for more wildflower meadows. We take a shortcut back to the road to meet the van via the 0.25 mile 4th Crossing Trail along a pretty tumbling creek (3 miles r.t., 400 ft elev. gain total).
For those who want an easier walk, we will venture to Myrtle Falls and back, then drive to Reflection Lake, several miles east of Paradise. Mount Rainier's reflection in the lake is awesome, and the wildflowers around the lake are lovely.
Paradise is located in an elevational zone between 5000 and 6500, which is characterized by mixed forest and subalpine meadows. The subalpine parkland covers approximately 23 percent of the park; vegetation in this zone is a mosaic of tree clumps and herbaceous meadows, dominated by tall perennials including Sitka valerian, subalpine lupine, and green hellebore and extending from 5000 ft to about 7000-ft elevation. The clumps of trees are primarily subalpine fir, mountain hemlock, Alaska yellow cedar, and whitebark pine.
At Mount Rainier you can find at least 56 mammal species, 16 species of amphibians and reptiles and more than 229 bird species. On this trip we expect to see Hoary Marmots and Douglas and Golden-mantled Ground Squirrels in the Paradise wildflower meadows and Columbian Black-tailed Deer along the roads and perhaps in the meadows. If you visit Paradise earlier or later in the day, we have also seen red fox in the evening along the roads to Paradise and black bear in the early morning near Reflection Lake.
Be sure to bring your binoculars for we will almost certainly see the most common birds such as Gray Jay, Steller’s Jay, Clark’s Nutcracker, Common Raven, and Dark-eyed Junco. We will also keep an eye out for other common birds of Mt Rainier’s subalpine zone such as Red-tailed Hawk, Blue Grouse, Vaux’s Swift, Rufus Hummingbird, Northern Flicker, Pacific-slope Flycatcher, Mountain Chickadee, Chestnut-backed Chickadee, Red-breasted Nuthatch, Brown Creeper, Winter Wren, Golden-crowned Kinglet, Hermit Thrush, Varied Thrush, American Robin, American Pipit, Gray-crowned Rosy Finch, and Pine Siskin. About half of the birds observed in the park nest here and many are migrants that winter in the southern United States or Central America.
The wildflower bloom at Paradise starts as soon as the snow melts, with Glacier Lilies and Avalanche Lilies the first to bloom, followed by Western Anemones and Beargrass. In mid-August, the wildflower season is usually at its peak and meadows are a luxurious carpet of color. The Dark Horse and Skyline trails climb through meadows filled with Subalpine Lupine, Magenta Paintbrush, and Fleabane (Wandering Daisy), Lewis Monkey Flower, and Arrowhead Groundsel. We also expect to see Marsh Marigolds, Purple Shooting Stars, Red Heather, Elephant's Head, Lewis' Monkey-flower, Bog Orchid, Thimbleberry, Bunchberry, Common Pink Wintergreen, Tiger Lily, Twin-flower, Penstemon, Blue Gentian, Western Pasque Flower, Helebore, Cascade and Parry’s aster, Alpine Pearlwort, and many others.
We leave for home in time for our 6:45 p.m. drop-of in Renton.
This tour can be customized as a private tour, call or email for a quote.
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