Looking up at a sky filled with clouds and color, I squinted and did a double take. Something wasn’t quite right. That wasn’t a cloud formation — it was the summit of the most unusual mountain I’ve ever seen.
Mount Rainier doesn’t behave like other mountains. It doesn’t just rise — it looms, bulbous and broad, high above the clouds. Its massive shape shifts through pink, purple, white, blue, and gray, casting long shadows and sometimes vanishing entirely behind a curtain of mist. And then, in an instant, the clouds part and Rainier reveals herself again. At times it doesn’t even look real, like someone painted a surreal skyline across the Cascade Range.
We spent two days on one side of the mountain, driving up to the Paradise Visitor Center, hiking along scenic trails, and marveling at the wildflowers and snowfields. Then we circled around and spent another two days near Tacoma, on the mountain’s western flank. No matter where we were — near or far — Rainier was always there, that wild, disappearing mountain, just over your shoulder.
Even the famed naturalist John Muir was struck by it, calling Rainier “astonishingly spectacular and singularly unique”. At over 14,000 feet, it’s the tallest peak in Washington and the most glaciated mountain in the continental United States. It’s also an active stratovolcano, last erupting in the mid-1800s, and is considered the third most dangerous volcano in the U.S. due to its proximity to population centers.
And yet, it stands there — majestic and mysterious — a natural guardian of the Pacific Northwest.