Paradise on Mount Rainier, Elevation 5,400 feet

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Clouds hid simply stellar panoramic scenery of ice-capped mountain peaks and a field of glaciers, yet we marveled at dense evergreen forests & wildflower meadows of Paradise. 97% of Mt. Rainier National Park is designated Wilderness. Mother ambles up to the Henry M. Jackson Memorial Visitor Center on our first morning at Mount Rainier, June 28, one of more than two million sightseers to the park annually. Located in Pierce County, Washington, the Center helped us explore the secrets of Mount Rainier and its very fragile native flora & fauna wilderness ecosystems, and provides excellent geology, glacier, and mountain climbing exhibits. Mt. Rainier National Park encompasses 378 square miles, elevation rising up from 1,880' at the unique inland Carbon (coal deposits) River rainforest to 2,531' at the summit.
Dandelion, Taraxacum officinale, exquisitely opens up its bright golden blossoms at the base of a rock wall, making itself at home among many natives like the Jacob’s ladder (Polemonium pulcherrimum), & other flowers we saw here. Pollination of a western anemone [western pasqueflower] (Pulsatilla occidentalis), from subalpine meadows to alpine elevations, one of the first flowers that appear as the alpine snows begin to melt, exposing patches of soil to the sun. If you gravitate to a wonderful sky blue of lupine, look to be blessed by eye-catching brilliancy of blooms and beauty of foliage. This native broadleaf lupine (Lupinus latifolius) is one of the Park's 3 perennial and 1 annual lupine species. Avalanche Lily (Erythronium montanum)—white petals and yellow centers—grows in masses in subalpine meadows & open woods, one of over 893 species, subspecies and varieties of plants identified in Mount Rainier National Park.

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