Green Lake — Sunday, Apr. 27, 2014

Mount Rainier Area > NW - Carbon River/Mowich

Was planning on a nice Sunday hike with some friends, got them to go all in. However my girlfriend the girl from the couple we were going out hiking with decided to go run 8 miles on Saturday in prep for their upcoming half-marathon, so they were a little sore and wanted to take it easy like Sunday morning...eh? eh? anyone get that? Ok moving along. I decided that a nice fairly easy hike up to Green Lake would be in order, heard that the lake had finally thawed as well so it would be nice to go soak up the crystal clear waters. Well the sun was shining and the people were happy, until we passed Buckley and actually started our way into Rainier NP, then the cloud cover came in and so did the drizzle. After loading up the bags, and paying the entrance fee, we headed down what once was an old road to the Ipsut Campground I believe at around 1000-1030? It's about a 3-3.5 mile walk in on the road (its gravel and flat not too challenging). We took a short snack break right at the turn off for Green Lake and Ranger falls, from here on out its up. The trail is fairly muddy on the way up, not too sloppy though, lot of good trail work has been done to clear away all the blowdowns across the trail. We didn't have to dodge too many mudholes at all. Then it started to rain fairly lightly about halfway-ish up to Ranger Falls. There was actually a point on the trail where the rain turned to snow...like a line in the atmosphere you could see the snow melt and turn to rain, it was mind bottling (anchorman reference). Finally we made it up to Ranger Falls then up and across the cool trunk bridge, with RAILING! and finally to Green Lake..all the while it was still snowing, except up at the lake it was actually sticking. Once at the lake we looked around, played in the mud, then took a nice lunch break.....the girls weren't having it though. The wind started to blow across the lake and cut through the trees, making it really cold for them. Naturally they didn't bring enough spare layers and I was forced to break out my spares, and hand hotties for them (no need to fret, I was just fine in my sweater and stocking cap). We had a nice little lunch by the lake, then packed up as quick as we came (its a shame I really wanted to spend more time, but I love my girl, so we left) and headed back down. The trip down was just fine, minus the fact that all the snow had turned the trail into a big mud slick and everyone was slipping and sliding over the log steps or the rocks or roots or just even the trail. Hilarity ensued over everyone being soaked and covered in mud, for the girls it really just got to the point where they wanted to get back to the car as quickly as possible. All in all I thought it was a good hike. Would it have been better had the weather been nicer? Had we stayed at the lake a little longer? Had we just enjoyed being outside a little longer? Sure, but I'm not gonna complain cause its just great getting out there, even when nothing goes the way you planned it. Also real quick, as most of you probably already know the bugs are starting to come out, it wasn't bad at all up there, but some skeeters were definitely buzzing around. Happy 'Squatchin!!