Mia and I celebrated our twenty second wedding anniversary last weekend. I’m a bit gobsmacked that somehow twenty-two years has somehow flown by in the blink of an eye.

I wanted to do something a bit special for this anniversary. We’d visited Mt Rainier way back 2013 after living in Oregon for only four months. It was a day trip and we spent a lot of time just driving around. This time I booked us three nights at the historic Paradise Inn. There is a bunch of hiking right from there and the views (when not cloudy) are absolutely stunning.

I booked this back in March of 2026 hoping that the weather would be good. You never know what you are going to get up at 5,000′ elevation in September. We ended up with a mixed bag of clouds and showers but also blue sky and gorgeous views. Temps were about perfect though. Lows in the low 40’s and highs in the upper 50’s to low 60’s.

Thursday Arrival

In order to avoid potential backups getting into Rainier National Park for a holiday weekend we booked Thursday as our first day. We arrived a little past 2pm and couldn’t check in until 4pm. We hung out in the lobby reading and enjoying a nice fire. Grabbed some lunch at the cafe, did some people watching and were able to check in promptly at 4pm.

After dumping all our stuff in the room, we walked around the area around the Inn. Including the visitors center and gift shop. Then it was dinner in the dining room. Because they had just lost a bunch of summer help it was buffet style, but there was plenty (and I mean PLENTY) of food choices. Then we spent the evening hanging out in our room and reading.

Friday

Apparently, I was smart enough to pay ahead of time for the breakfast option every morning when I made our reservations. That was also served buffet style and again plenty of options to choose from. We wouldn’t be going hungry on this vacation. The commotion for the morning was a small black bear walking around the parking lot looking for snacks.

We wanted to do a longer hike today since the weather was looking good until about 2pm or so. Instead of doing what was going to feel like mall walking on the super popular Skyline Trail, we opted to drop down the Lakes Trail to Reflection Lakes and then back up to Skyline and then down Golden Gate Trail back to the Inn. This loop was just under 7 miles total with around 2K elevation gain.

Another lazy afternoon of reading, coffee and chilling out in the lobby people watching. It started to rain pretty hard about 20 minutes after we ended our hike. Thank goodness for an early start. Then it cleared up around 7pm or so.

Saturday – Actual Anniversary Day

Today was almost the total opposite of Friday. It was drizzly in the morning with things supposed to be clearing up in the afternoon. Instead of waiting for a later hike, we just grabbed rain gear and headed to a short, but spectacular hike our to Bench and Snow Lakes. This trailhead was about a 10-minute drive away. the trailhead parking was packed despite the weather. We had to park up the road a couple hundred yards at another pull out.

Snow Lake was at the base of some sheer rock walls. The color of the lake was this blue-green color that pictures will not do justice to.

This hike was barely over 3 miles roundtrip. It was up and down with a couple slick spots due to the recent rain making the top couple millimeters of the rock hard trail loosen up. We saw a lot of people in sneakers and unfortunately at the steepest, slickest section of trail this one woman took a pretty nasty fall. She said she was okay but definitely could tell she was in some discomfort.

Spent another afternoon drinking coffee and people watching from the upstairs portion of the lobby. It was for sure a bit more crowded today than the past two days. Especially given the weather. It did finally clear up around 6pm or so and we had more fantastic views of the mountain. I also went out that evening to stargaze and listen in for a bit on a ranger led celestial viewing party.

Sunday

Sunday was checkout day. Another ample breakfast in the dining room and packing up all our stuff into the car. The weather was stellar this morning and we had the clearest views yet of Mt Rainier.

On the way out we stopped at Narada falls for one more photo before the almost 4 hour drive home.

All in all it was a fantastic experience. The Paradise Inn is a great choice for easy access within the national park. It isn’t overly swanky or pretentious; the rooms are rather basic too. However, you will not hear any complaints for us. The dining options in either the dining room or the cafe are definitely pricey. There are no other options nearby though, so they kinda got you locked in. We did bring a fair number of snacks from home to keep in the room.

I’d love to look in to doing the Wonderland Trail around the mountain. It definitely seems like it would be a challenging backpacking trip. We spent a very short amount of time on a section of it during our Friday hike.

I’d be remiss without stating that I am so happy that Mia and I are celebrating 22 years together. The amount of “stuff” that happens over that amount of time is hard to comprehend. There isn’t a better partner out there that I would rather have by my side. Here is to many, many, many more years together!

Thanks for reading,
-Pete