The meadows above Paradise in Mount Rainier National Park are one of the most popular areas in the park. Because of this, the hikes through the meadows do not offer the same isolation that you can find at state parks or national forests. On the other hand, the meadows are popular because they are so beautiful, and because they offer a variety of spectacular views of the mountain. If you take this hike in late afternoon in summer, as Chris and I did in August 1996, you can avoid most of the crowds while enjoying the beauty of day-fall on the mountain.
Many trails begin near the Jackson Visitor Center at Paradise. Chris and I drove the ten miles from our campground at Cougar Rock to Paradise around 6 p.m.: the parking lot was emptying out, and we passed more hikers coming off the trails than traveling along them. We began our hike on the paved trailheads that lie along the west side of the vistor's center, climbing due north. The meadows were still filled with summer flowers, and we saw a marmot snuffling in the tall grass early on our hike. For the first stage of the hike, we headed north and east: the trail rose up along a series of long switchbacks and hikers on the glacier trails were visible below us.
The northward branch of the trail peaks on a low-rising hill crowned with rocks that hikers must scramble over and around. Trees block the summit of Rainier from view, but the Tatoosh range behind makes an impressive backdrop as the sun falls toward the horizon. Soon after this peak, the trail turns west, away from the hillside and onto a flat plateau of meadow. Now the views of Rainier open up above you, although the best photos (and this is a photographer's hike) wait further down the west side of the meadow, along the banks of Edith Creek. The path splits in several directions here, one route taking you further up to Panorama Point and others leading down into the lower meadows. Chris and I found it impossible to make the trails on the map correspond to the trail we hiked, but only the threat of darkness made us worried: it would be impossible to get lost in these well-traveled meadows.
Toward the lower end of the meadows, a loop trail branching to the west leads hikers out toward a view of the Nisqually Glacier. Unlike the meadows on the banks of Edith Creek, the western trail passes through stands of trees. At 7:30pm, this route began to be shrouded in shadows. Both marmot and deer took advantage of the increased cover: we saw several of each from the trail. Eventually the path loops along above the valley below the glacier. The national park has erected a brief display on the action of Rainier's glaciers. This loop must be popular during the day with people looking for a short excursion through the meadows to the most accessible of Rainier's glaciers.
The meadows above Paradise do not offer a remote hike far from crowds. Two hikes that begin at Paradise offer longer excursions that presumably leave the crowds behind: the hike above Panorama point, mentioned earlier, and the hike to McClure Rock at the base of the Paradise-Stevens Glacier. Chris and I spent three hours in the meadows, enjoying the mountain air and stopping to chat with several families in the meadows. If not for the rushed nature of our visit to Rainier (we were in the midst of a two-week car-camp from the Bay Area to Seattle and back), we would have sampled some of the longer and less popular hikes as well. But Paradise is the perfect end-of-day relaxer hike, and would complement a longer morning hike in Rainier very well.
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