Rainier Mountain Festival and Kautz Creek

Saturday, Al Lind and I went to Mount Rainier again - can't get enough! This time each year the Rainier Mountain Festival is put on in Ashford, Washington, site of the famous Whittaker brothers 'Rainier Base Camp' and mountaineering store. It affords the opportunity, should you be so inclined, to schmooze with Jim and Lou Whittaker and many other famous mountaineering legends.

Once we satisfied our curiosity we continued the few remaining miles to the Mount Rainier Park boundary and into the Park just a few miles to Kautz Creek, site of a number of rather spectacular glacial river rampages with amazing resultant debris fields. We hiked up a rather gentle sloping trail perhaps only a little over a mile. The pictures don't quite do it justice. You wouldn't think water could move that much huge trees and giant boulders. See the photo album.