Well, the winds have finally brought the Eastern Washington wildfire smoke to Western Washington. We had already made plans to drive down to Mount Rainier, so we just decided to go anyway. The sky was already smoky when we left home, and this was the freeway on I-405 going southbound.

The skies remained smoky as we drove further south and east. Our first stop on the trip was the Federation Forest, just east of the White River.

There was a nice little trail, but we didn’t have much time. However, we did meet a little Douglas Squirrel right outside the entrance to the restrooms.

Isn’t he cute?! You can tell he’s a Douglas Squirrel by his diminutive size, and his reddish tummy.

Going on down the road…

We stopped by a wide spot in the road near the White River. There isn’t much water flowing, due to the time of year. It can get pretty high, and sometimes floods in the fall and winter.

You can see how smoky the sky was.

Onward and Upward!

This is the road just inside the entrance to the National Park. We were surprised to see how much the fee was, about $35.00! And pleased that we have a Lifetime Senior Pass to get into any National Park free! After some scary switchbacks, we arrived at the Sunrise parking lot. We parked in front of the little building where the snack bar was, and Hubby went inside to buy something. I went back outside, and met these cute little guys.

Cute little chipmunks! They were everywhere on the ground, and munching the seeds off the plants outside the building.

I could have watched him all day, but I took a short walk around and saw what I could see, in spite of the smoke everywhere. The mountain itself was shrouded in smoke and couldn’t be made out against the sky. What a disappointment!

Yeah, I think there may be a mountain there somewhere! So I looked a bit closer to us for interest.

I liked that piece of tree root, in front of the little spruce tree. There were lots of the dwarf trees, as the elevation means they don’t grow too high.

I thought this old, dead tree was very beautiful.

That’s one of the high meadows that bloom with wildflowers in the spring. It was mainly smoky today, and not very inviting. We did, however, find some flowers a bit closer.

When we had had our fill of snags and chipmunks, we got in the car and drove down to the Sunrise Point overlook, where you can see Sunrise Lake and the Palisades Trailhead.

I also liked the old trees clinging to the hillside on the East side of the point.

Then it was time to head down. I did get a chance to get a photo of one of the road-cut hillsides on the way down. It looked to me like a big rainstorm might make the entire hillside slide down over the road. I hope I was wrong!

So we made our way down the mountain, and hit the road home. We stopped for a bite to eat in the town of Enumclaw. Get the sunset!

I just hope the smoke doesn’t stay too long. But we had a nice trip for the day.