We woke up in the town of Morton to several disappointments. The first being that the speedometer became possessed and the needle spun round and round. The second being that the town of Morton are not only against getting up early but also against working on the weekends. We hung around in town until the one coffee shop was supposed to open only to realize that they are closed ALL WEEKEND. What kind of coffee shop is that? Make sure to not only read the sign but do so thorougly. Especially if you have a conference call first thing. We ran into a fellow road traveler who was even more disappointed than us to see his one chance at WiFi go up in smoke. Some other advice to fellow travelers; when the travel book says to visit Mt. Rainier in August it really means it.
As this mountain controls all the weather in it's vicinty, it made the day mostly rainy and so cloudy it was hard to see the mountain (and trust us it's big)! With that shadowing the beginning of our day we decided to make the most of it by walking around the lower elevation of the mountain in the beautiful forests. We started our hike in the Grove of the Patriachs which is an old growth forest. Though the walk through the forest was great the best part was stumbling upon an in progress talk by one of the rangers. We tagged onto this group and spent the rest of our walk learning about the vegetation and animals in this forest. Several of the trees were estimated to be almost 1200 years old! The tour ended at a Western Red Cedar which was 31 inches around (Isaiah had the closest guess).
We then followed along the Silver Falls path. The falls were incredible to watch and such a reminder at the sheer force water holds. We saw logs being broken at the bottom of the falls like they were just meer toothpicks. All the forest area had just breath taking views every few steps. We spent the night in the glorious town of Enuclam which we were excited to be in since it had several signs of actual civilization and not a single home turned taxidermy studio in sight! -A
Silver Falls
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