The travel notes of the seven | mount Rainier national park ferris wheel and Seattle

Although less than 200 kilometers from Seattle, Mount Rainier national Park is not accessible by public transportation, leaving only two options to rent a car or take a day trip with a local travel agency. Since I didn't rent a car in Seattle, I had to go with a Tour. I chose the Day Tour of Mount Rainier on the NorthWest Tour. My trip to Rainier began at 6:50 a.m., when a chauffeur/guide picked me up in a minibus near my youth hostel, picked up the full tour group at Seattle hotels and headed southeast.

Moist air from the Pacific Ocean flows east around Mount Rainier, causing it to fall frequently and its summit to be covered with snow all year round. The emmons Glacier on the eastern slope is the largest glacier in the United States. Melting snow water in summer makes the foothills and the foothills lush with vegetation. From the foothills, you can see Mount Rainier and Emmons Glacier in the distance.

After entering the park from the Nisqually entrance, the station wagon stops at Longmire for a free period of time. One of two places to stay in Mount Rainier National Park, the National Park Inn, this historic building is actually part of the Longmire Springs Hotel founded by James Longmire, Today it offers 25 rooms, a very nice restaurant and a souvenir shop. The hotel is open all year round, but it's not cheap, usually over $200 a night.

The historic building is the Longmire Museum, which is actually the visitor center of the area. The museum has real-time information about the park, exhibits and book sales, and narrators to talk about the history and current situation of the park. It shows the overview of the Rainier Mountains and its history, geography, geology, climate, etc. Early explorers of mountains, specimens of wild animals, and animal distribution maps in North America are also introduced.

Opposite the National Park Inn is the entrance to the Trail of the Shadows, a circular walkway that's only three-quarters of a mile long and takes about half an hour to complete, though the station wagon doesn't stop long at Longmire, but it's enough to cover the Trail. Use the trail to see the historic remains of the Longmire Springs Resort, founded by James Longmire, a pioneer in the area.

James Longmire arrived and settled there in 1853, and then by chance found dozens of hot springs, fed by melted snow on Mount Rainier, formed by volcanic heat. In 1890, the Longmire family established and operated the Longmire Medical Springs Resort. In the 1890s, periodicals and newspapers were reporting on the beneficial effects of the hot springs, and the resort attracted many visitors with its baths and massages, and this is an old picture of what the Longmire Hot Springs resort looked like.

Sadly, the Longmire Hot Springs Resort burned down in 1920, and the only remaining historical remains are these small wooden cabins built between 1884 and 1887 by Elcaine Longmire, the eldest son of James Longmire. It's hard to imagine what it was like to live in a wooden house in those days. It's much worse than the houses we live in now

These are the remains of hot springs that James Longmire found in the woods. There are 49 hot springs around Longmire, and the water temperature is between 50 and 85 degrees Fahrenheit. You can imagine what it would have been like to spend a holiday in one of these hot pools. Further up the road is the entrance to the Rampart Ridge Trail, a slightly longer 4.6 mile loop that takes about four hours.