"Flowers and a Bear"

Western Washington has had a challenging spring and summer with inordinate amounts of rain and snow and very few sunny days. The large accumulations of snow and the cool spring and summer days left most hiking trails covered with snow until now. Consequently, our hiking time in these mountains has been limited this year.

Summer has finally arrived with sunny beautiful days. Yesterday Rosie and I decided to spend the day hiking. I asked her where she wanted to go. and she said, "I want to see flowers and a bear!" I checked the hiking trip reports online and concluded the best place for flowers was in one of our favorite places on earth -- the Sunrise area in Mount Rainier National Park. Because of the late summer the flowers are about six weeks behind schedule and are just reaching their peak in many places.

This would prove to be one of the most beautiful days we have ever spent hiking, as the flowers were incredible -- vibrant, multitudinous, and aromatic. As Rosie likes to say, "God is the greatest gardener."







Lupine is one of the most plentiful and beautiful of all the wild flowers in this area. Some fields/meadows are so full of lupine they look purple. Below are a couple of close ups of lupine. The first was taken on a ridge with the Cascade mountains in the background the other has one of the numerous snow patches behind it.











As we approached the end of our hike we spotted a fairly small cinnamon colored Brown Bear grazing on the flowers in a meadow. He showed no interest in us as he got to within about 15 feet of where we were standing.





In the photo above, the bear grazes in the shadow of majestic Mount Rainier.

It was a wonderful day to enjoy some of God's most beautiful creations.

Note our bear friend in the center of the photo below.