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Saturday (and Sunday) in the Park
Longmire, Mt Rainier National Park
December 14-15, 2002
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It had snowed all week at Mt Rainier so Kim and I made reservations at the National Park Inn at Longmire for the weekend. My sister and her
husband joined us for Friday and Saturday. We stayed up late Friday night playing a rousing game of Hearts!
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Saturday morning we awoke to a rainy day so after our wonderful breakfast, we all went for a short hike around Longmire. Kim wasn't feeling
very well, so we just relaxed around the Inn most of the day. Later that afternoon Kim and I went for a short hike on the "Trail of Shadows". We could
see the Christmas lights on the Inn as we returned just as it was getting dark. The warm fireplace was welcome after our hike in the rain. I read and Kim
worked on her cross-stitch while we warmed our toes in front of the fire.
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When we woke Sunday morning it was snowing so we ate a quick breakfast and headed up the road to Paradise for some skiing in the fresh snow! Our
plans were almost foiled at Narada Falls where a Ranger was flagging people down to tell them that chains were required from here on up to Paradise. We
pulled over to put our chains on but to our dismay the chains we had were for our old car which had smaller tires, so they didn't fit! Ahhhh! I was about to
give up trying to make the chains stretch when the Ranger walked up and told us that they lifted the chain requirement, so we were free to drive up to
Paradise if we wanted to. We thought about it and decided to just park there at Narada Falls since it was still snowing pretty well and we didn't want to get
stranded up at Paradise without chains.
So we put on our boots and hiked up to the road. We met some other skiers and took turns putting in the ski tracks towards Reflection Lake. It was
great to finally be able to ski in this magical winter wonderland!
