Mount Rainier National Park - A Wild Time Among the Wildflowers (National Parks Trip #3)

This post represents another installment in the series documenting our West Coast National Parks trip in the summer of 2017.  Alan and I, along with our 18 year old daughter, Kyra, logged a total of 8,513 memorable miles of adventure over the course of five and a half weeks during the months of July and August.

“Think outside the box.”  This fairly common expression is probably familiar to most people.  It’s a concept that my very logical mind often has difficulty converting into anything useful.  But, when it comes to finding good campgrounds, my brain has figured out that it never hurts to think outside the box.  And that means . . .  power companies.  Back in 2021, when Alan and I spent an extended period of time in Idaho, we camped at two facilities run by Idaho Power.  (Our campsite at Woodhead Park in Hells Canyon remains one of my all-time favorites.)  In researching a good base camp for our visit to Mount Rainier National Park, I discovered that Tacoma Power in Washington operated four facilities with campgrounds – and one of them was less than 20 miles from Mount Rainier National Park.

Alder Lake Park was a real gem, and the campground was an excellent choice for us.  The park is located about 10 miles south of Eatonville, Washington, at the northern end of Alder Lake.  The park staff was friendly and helpful, and the facilities were lovely and well-maintained.  Our campsite was spacious, and it had full hookups.  In addition to two campgrounds at this facility, the park also offered boat launches, boat mooring, swimming beaches and picnic areas.  If we visit Mount Rainier again in the future, I already know where we’re staying.  The campgrounds run by power companies in the western United States have proven to be excellent options for us considering our preference for public campgrounds over private RV parks.  And I can’t help but smile at the name of the website that handles reservations for Tacoma Power: GoingToCamp.com.

Alder Lake Park - Site #38

One of the boat launches at Alder Lake

This visit to Mount Rainier National Park would be the first for all three of us.  Having heard that the summer explosion of wildflowers in this park was phenomenal, we were hoping we had timed it right with our early August visit.  Oh, yeah, we definitely did!  Plus, we couldn’t have asked for a more beautiful day to visit Mount Rainier and hike the trails.  The mountain was out in all its glory, and wildflowers provided splashes of color in almost every direction.  Not only was it a visit we all enjoyed, but it must have made a huge impression on Kyra.  She mentioned a specific trail and all the wildflowers in a conversation we had about National Parks not even two months ago – and here we are, nearly eight years later.

Next up on our itinerary was Olympic National Park on the Washington coast.  Olympic presented a problem for us because it encompasses almost one million acres and several distinct ecosystems, but it has a limited road system.  Unfortunately, our time was not unlimited and tough choices had to be made.  (Regular readers may remember that our cross-country National Parks trips with the kids were more of what I call “sampler” trips.  Because we have to allow nearly two full weeks just to get back and forth across the country, our time out west was always limited due to family-related factors or business constraints.  So we would “sample” as many National Parks as we could in the time we had available, and then plan a more in-depth exploration of any we wanted to return to when time allowed in the future.)  Rather than take the time to move the travel trailer around to access different sections of Olympic National Park, we decided to make Port Angeles, Washington, our base camp, and drive to the different sections of the Park that made our priority list.  Not a perfect plan, by any means, but doable and the best option we could come up with.

From the delightful Alder Lake Park, we moved on to the Salt Creek Recreation Area outside of Port Angeles.  Yes, it was difficult to get a reservation.  Yes, the sites were lacking privacy and way too close to each other to be in our comfort zone.  But, yes, we would stay here again in a heartbeat.  Why?  The VIEWS!  This campground sits right above the Strait of Juan de Fuca which separates Washington’s Olympic Peninsula from British Columbia’s Vancouver Island.  Even though we had picked up our new Outdoors RV travel trailer earlier in 2017, we decided to take our older Jayco Jay Flight on this excursion because it was a bunkhouse model.   With Kyra having her own bunk to sleep in, plus Ryan’s bunk to store her gear (missed you, Ry!), the setup precluded having to make up the sofa bed in the new travel trailer on a LOT of nights during this five and a half week trip.  It was a good decision (especially considering how much “stuff” a teenage girl requires for such a trip), but I was really missing our recliners and the big back window in the ORV while we were at Salt Creek.  Even without that back window, we enjoyed our campsite immensely, though.  Yes, we’d go back – and without hesitation.

Too close for comfort and no privacy, but . . .

Look at that view!

A perfect spot for quiet contemplation at Salt Creek Recreation Area

With just two full days to discover the delights of Olympic National Park (so much to see and do!), we planned an early start for the next morning, and we all had ourselves a good night’s sleep.  Olympic would be the seventh National Park out of nine on this trip, and we were eagerly looking forward to our explorations.

Spoiler Alert:  I’m going to share an inside family joke with you.  If you continue to read the rest of this paragraph, you will never think of the Strait of Juan de Fuca in the same way again, never ever.  So, consider our family’s strange sense of humor before deciding whether or not you want to see this through to the end.  Decide fast, because here’s the end . . . For some reason (and I honestly don’t know which one of the three of us came up with this, so no blame can be cast in any direction), once we started talking about the Strait of Juan de Fuca, the phrase was contracted to “Wanda Fuca.”  And now (sadly, to be sure), it’s not unusual to hear any one of the three of us wonder “how Wanda is.”  And yes, I know – you can’t unlearn that little tidbit, and it will remain with you for the rest of your life.  Don’t say I didn’t warn you.