You know the RAMROD, right? A bike race: Ride Around Mount Rainier in One Day. Well, I decided to do it the easy way. And Take A Hike, too.

Loaded up the pack in the trunk and drove down to Eatonville. I was shocked and dismayed to find out that the Ohop Valley Bakery is now Doug's Seafood. What a bummer! They used to have the second-best maple bars in the state.

So I continued on to the Longmire entrance of the park, where I had to wait in line to get in. Then I had to follow SLOW tourons all the way up to Narada Falls. But I turned off towards Reflection Lake, avoiding the Paradise zoo.

I got to Reflection Lake a little after 1, and by 1:20 I had my pack and boots on, heading up the trail towards Pinnacle Peak. It's not a very difficult scramble up to the top, but it can be unnerving to the inexperienced. There was a guy ahead of me, most of the way up, who was obviously in the process of psyching himself out. (I've done it myself; I know what it looks like.) So I told him he was almost done with the hard part (which he was) and showed him the easiest way up.

Up on top a guy and his son had set up a spotting scope and were checking out the climbers on the mountain. Pinnacle is THE BEST viewpoint on the south side of Rainier. We also watched a crowd of crazy skiers having a party down below. They were booting it up a snowfield to the saddle between Pinnacle and Castle, and then skiing down and into a slushy lake at the bottom.

But all these fun and games had to end, so I hiked back down to the car and continued the trip. It was about 4:30ish at that point. The road from Reflection Lake down Stevens Canyon was great fun. Not too much traffic, places to pass, and lots of curves.

Then it was back up towards Chinook Pass on 127(?), which was a poorly maintained road but still not too bad of a drive. Unfortunately, when I hit 410 I also hit the traffic. But at least I had a good car for passing. Three or four times I had to pass trains of 5+ cars at a time. Once I finally got past the guy in front who hadn't figured out the "delay of five or more vehicles is illegal" signs also applied to him, I was able to have a nice pleasant cruise for a while -- until I would reach the next train.

Still, it wasn't too bad, and I made pretty good time. Now I'm home, and it's time for dinner. The best news is, there were no issues with the car whatsoever. Seems like I finally may have it back in proper shape.

 

good stuff Glad to hear your s2k is ok to!

 

Doug's Seafood still has donuts. My friends and I were there yesterday. One of my friends had 2 maple bars. I had a chocolate icing. My other friend didn't even want to stop in there, but after he finished his first donut, he said it was so good, he went in and got another one. Donuts yummy.

 

I didn't get there until about noon, and there was really nothing left. OK, I'll give them another shot sometime. But the sign said "Bakery goods by Schwartz Bros." which is a bad sign compared to what it used to be when it was Ohop Valley.

 

We drove up to Sunrise yesterday, with a quick stop at the Scottish Highland Games.

Great day for the drive!

We saw two Ferraris and about a hundred 1950's hot rods.

 

I almost drove up there as I passed by, about 5:30ish. But I was getting quite hungry by that point. Due to the lack of maple bars, I had only eaten two bananas since breakfast. So I decided just to press for home.