Hiking at Mowich Lake

I woke up Saturday morning - to an ALARM, can you believe it? Me, an alarm? Yes, I set one every day. It's my "me" time in the morning. Cole sleeps in a little later (from staying up later during summertime), Shawn always sleeps in and when we have Anna on the weekends, well, she's a teenager and it's practically a requirement. (Ahh, I remember those days fondly)

Anyhow.... Shawn and I were discussing what to do for the day when he said, "Let's go for another hike."

I'm game - let's go!!

He's already picked out a spot and so up, up, up we go past Wilkeson & Carbonado to Mowich Lake. We pass nice sized patches of SNOW and Cole is just amazed by this. For as nice as it's been here and us wearing shorts and tank tops, I'm a little surprised too.

A little bridge over a stream

The hiking was pretty intense. I'm telling you, I struggled a bit on some of the inclines. The hike itself was great! We started at almost 5000 feet and only inclined about 150 feet, but it was fairly severe descents and inclines - LOTS of steps - that almost killed these little legs of mine!

But when we got to the lookout........... we were rewarded with a SPECTACULAR view!

The beautiful, majestic Mt. Rainier

(and so nekkid!)

I just have my Canon Elph.... the contrast is horrible! But here are the kids with the mountain

Breathtaking!

The first waterfall we came to. Shawn kept teasing us with, "Oh, this is going to be the biggest waterfall you've ever seen!" Uh-huh.... But it did get better each time.

The second waterfall. Most impressive! But we had NO IDEA what we were in store for.....

Our next stop completely took our breath away!!

SPRAY FALLS - elev. 5100 feet

So completely spectacular and spiritual to witness! It was graceful and masculine all in the same sight. Just hearing the rush of the water and feeling the spray, you could tell this was a very powerful force.

Cole taking it all in

Shawn & Anna decided to brave it across the river to capture the WHOLE view of the falls. Cole was too little to cross and I was, well, too scared. I'm scared of heights and don't like being out of control. Let them take the chance!

I admit, they got a gorgeous view!! You're able to see almost the entire falls on the other side. In the words of Cole, "no fair!"

The *entire* Spray Falls

And one last photo - PROOF that I was there! :)