Another great day in the Great NW

We had another great day in the great NW today.  Did a 40+ mile bike ride (~20 mile out and back) into the Mt Rainier National Park to Sunrise Lodge on the eastern slope of the mountain.  The entrance to the park is at the turn-off for the Crystal Mt Resort where we are staying.  The resort is 6 miles off the highway and they are doing construction on the road... and it needs it.  It is a 6 mile grinding climb that isn't very interesting so we drove down the hill to the highway and road into the park from there.

There is plenty of climbing on this 20 mile ride anyway.  There is over 5000' of climbing in the 20 miles to Sunrise with only a couple of small downhills along the first 10 miles.  The return ride was pretty quick, with almost all downhill and only a couple of short climbs.

As expected, there were several opportunities for great views of the valleys and Mt Rainier along the way.  At Sunrise Lodge you get a close up and spectacular view of Mt Rainier and it's many glaciers.  Being at 6400' in elevation, there were large areas of the high alpine flowers we have been seeing since we got here.  More photos here