Must Visit places at Mount Rainier National Park

6 min readMar 8, 2019

Visiting Seattle, Washington for a day or two. Your trip to Seattle will be meaningless without seeing Mount Rainier National Park.

Mount Rainier is an active volcano at summit elevation of 14411 ft above sea level. It is one of the highest mountains in Pacific North West in state of Washington. Mount Rainier National park is located 60 miles south east to Seattle. The Park is 369 sq mile area which encloses mountain ranges, valleys, rivers, numbers of glaciers, waterfalls, wildlife, thousands of hiking trails, visitor centers, camping grounds and more.

Mount Rainier National Park is a Paradise for hikers, nature lovers, bird watchers and of course photographers. It is having all types of hikes starting from easy to strenuous. Even if you are not interested to hike, there are many places that can be explored by just getting to park your car and getting out.

Mount Rainier National Park can be entered from 3 different routes. You can choose as per your nearest location to enter the park. Mount Rainier National Park is open all year around. In winter Mount Rainier National park can be entered through Nisqually Entrance.

There are 4 visitor centers at Mount Rainier National Park.

Longmire Museum
Sunrise Visitor Center
Henry M Jackson Visitor Center (Paradise Visitor Center)
Ohanapecosh Visitor Center

Here I am listing road side attractions and short hikes that can be done in a day or two day plan of visiting Mount Rainier National Park. Visitor Centers and Museum are the best for visitor to gain information about Park and local sight seeing.

On entering through Nisqually Entrance and driving for few minutes the first place you get to see is Longmire Museum. Longmire Museum is in a historic park building. Museum offers visitor to discover about local history, information and has parking lot, rest rooms and picnic tables.

The National Park Inn, Longmire General store are adjacent to Longmire Museum.

Short Hikes that can be done with family and small kids

Trail of Shadows

Trail of Shadows is a short and easy walking loop trail of 0.75 mile hardly takes 30 minutes to 45 minutes just perfect for families with small kids. It can be accessed from National Park Inn at Longmire and can be done in either direction. Trail starts with long red cedar trees, mineral springs with gas bubbling in water and skunk cabbage marsh field.

Nisqually River Wooden Suspension Bridge

Nisqually River wooden suspension bridge is located at Longmire village in Mount Rainier National Park. It can be reached by 5 mins walking from Longmire Musuem or you can drive till end of road and park at Longmire Village.

Nisqually River Suspension Bridge is the oldest lasting road bridge in Mount Rainier National Park and is one of the few road-bearing suspension bridges in the National Park system. The Timber bridge reflects the park’s “rustic style” through its use of native material in an attempt to harmonize with the rugged park landscape.

Road side Attraction- Glacier Bridge

Glacier Bridge — On traveling from Longmire towards Paradise at distance of 5 miles there is the Glacier Bridge on looking up the valley, the view of Nisqually Glacier can be seen.

Road side Attraction- Ricksecker Point

Ricksecker Point is located at 6 miles from Longmire. Ricksecker Point road is one way road that gives scenic view of Mount Rainier, Nisqually Valley and Tatoosh range.

Narada Falls

Narada Falls is located on the way from Longmire to Paradise. The Magical waterfall is best viewed from lower viewing point just 0.1 mile from Parking lot.

Myrtle Falls

Myrtle Falls is located with scenic view of Mount Rainier in background. The falls can be reached from Paradise Visitor Center or Paradise Parking lot by walking 0.4 mile either on Golden gate trails or Skyline trail. Watch out for snow on trails if you are visiting in early summer. Good Hiking shoes or shoes with good grip, hiking poles are recommended if trail is covered with snow.

Grove of Patriarchs

Grove of Patriarchs trails is 1.5 miles round trip, easiest and heavily trafficked. The trail can be reached from Steven Canyons Entrance on Highway 123. The parking lot gets full within early hours of summer. The attractive feature of this trail is the suspension bridge on Ohanapecosh river and old, long trees along the trail. After crossing the suspension bridge, there is a loop trail with ancient thousand years old Red Cedar, Douglas Firs tree. The feeling is like you entered in some giant trees kingdom.

Road side Attraction- Box Canyon Overlook Bridge

Box Canyon Overlook is located along Stevens Canyon Road and it provides access to trails and a nice view of the canyon.

Mount Rainier National park is beautiful with majestic views of Glaciers, Canyons, Meadows, waterfalls, Campgrounds, Visitor center. If you don’t want to hike, then You can just drive through and stop at Visitor Centers or at pull out for Viewpoints. There are number of longer day hikes that can be done with family.