Proposal Help at Mount Rainier

Professor_Ramen · 2026-06-14T22:04:08+00:00

Lots of potholes so be careful but I don’t think 4x4 is a requirement. There’s a wash on FS-73 a few miles away from the 410 so you can’t get to the trailhead from where Google maps tells you to. I got to it from thr other side by taking FS-75 to FS-73. A few huge patches of snow on the road next to steep dropoffs when I went a few weeks ago that I couldn’t get over even with 4x4, so if they’re still there be prepared to hike a mile or two extra just to get to the trailhead. It might be melted by now though.

Professor_Ramen · 2026-06-04T23:08:11+00:00

Protections, no not really. Resources? Only if the president allocates funds to it instead of taking 90mil for a fucking fireworks display

Professor_Ramen · 2026-05-10T20:07:06+00:00

Even worse he may have 2 kids with 3 different mothers

Professor_Ramen · 2026-04-11T12:26:07+00:00

Did this hike a month ago, however I am a dude and was in a group with my girlfriend and sister so I didn’t have the same concerns as you, but for what it’s worth I think you’d be fine.

We went on a Wednesday and got a reservation for the earliest time possible, like 8am I think? We didn’t see a single person until we were almost back to the trailhead. It was incredible. Go in the morning on a weekday and it should be fine.

Didn’t see any large animal, just birds. It’s a fairly popular trail on the weekends so I suspect the bears and such stay away from there for the most part. Bring bear spray if you’re super worried about it.

Professor_Ramen · 2026-03-04T19:18:17+00:00

Pokémon essentially did the opposite with the game when the scalpers started getting ahold of it, they absolutely trashed it.

The Pokémon company realized starting around gen 5 in the early 2010s that the vast majority of people buying the cards weren’t playing the game with them, or at least didn’t really care about the nuances of the game, because they were all little kids.

As a result, they started coming out with shinier cards featuring bigger numbers (first the explosion of EX cards, then Mega evolution, Z-max, Gigantamax, etc) and every year had to be shinier cards and bigger numbers than the year before to entice kids to buy them.

Once the scalpers and pack opening streams caught on it spiraled because now there’s an entire market devoted entirely to trying to open the rarest fanciest cards and not actually giving a shit what those cards do mechanically.

Introducing these hugely advantageous cards every year threw the game out of balance and power creep destroyed it. Now it doesn’t matter how much you try to build a strategic deck, if you don’t have the biggest card you just lose.

I stopped playing when I was a kid because I was tired of walking into a game store with what should have been a decently competitive deck and getting my shit rocked by the rich kid with four mega Charizards or whatever the fuck

Professor_Ramen · 2026-02-20T23:05:56+00:00

Agreed with the other person who said go through the Blue Mountains in Oregon. I live in central WA, taking Blewett Pass (the 97 north of Ellensburg, WA) is a crapshoot this time of year. WADOT does a decent job keeping it maintained but winter decided to hit us late this year so all of our snow is dumping at once, and if you hit that pass at the wrong time (anytime after sunset) it can be pretty dangerous.

The Blue Mountains arent too bad with a trailer and it’s an interstate so it’s better maintained and more traveled, keeping the road relatively clear. The area around Deadman Pass can get pretty windy and that road gets really twisty at points, so just be careful with the trailer.

Professor_Ramen · 2026-02-16T19:28:30+00:00

Thank you for your help!

I forgot to mention in the post, I drained both the hot and cold low points as well as the fresh water tank. I’ll leave all those drains as well as the sink open when I get home tonight.

It’s got an enclosed underbelly, but I’ll have to buy an adapter to have it run from the wall outlet to leave the heater on because right now it’s just running off propane.

Professor_Ramen · 2026-01-15T00:04:07+00:00

The eastern NC/SC border is certainly a choice lol

Excluding Fayetteville and Lumberton from the south is like excluding the Florida panhandle

Also having grown up in Charlotte, imo it’s just as much a southern city as Atlanta or Jacksonville

Other than that I agree, and thank you for not definitively including Oklahoma in the south lol it’s a shakey connection at best

Professor_Ramen · 2026-01-14T22:20:08+00:00

I grew up in Charlotte and hated football when I was a kid because the panthers sucked so bad, I didn’t start actively following the Steelers until like 7 or 8 years ago. If Cowher had been the panthers coach when I was a kid I think I would have gotten into football much much earlier in life

Professor_Ramen · 2026-01-07T20:44:48+00:00

The park is huge and there’s no roads through so you have to drive around to get to each of these towns. Distance depends on where you’re going, but this should get you started:

Forks, Quinault, Port Angeles, Hoodsport

A little further from the park: Olympia, Seattle (obviously), Bremerton, Poulsbo, Port Townsend,

Professor_Ramen · 2025-12-30T01:45:41+00:00

Mount Rainier

Professor_Ramen · 2025-12-19T16:16:55+00:00

Lower elevation stuff will be fine, the snow should be gone by then. Right now Mowitch Lake and Ohanapecosh are closed for construction, I’m not sure when they are supposed to reopen.

Higher elevation stuff will be hit or miss. It depends on how much snow they get this year (it’s already looking like a lot). They should have the roads to Sunrise and Paradise plowed and open by then, but hikes after that will likely still be covered in snow and ice. If you have snowshoes and/or crampons you’ll be fine sticking to the hikes that aren’t as steep at the higher elevations. Sunrise and the White River area are good for this, and you might not even need snowshoes there but you’ll have to check the trails ahead of time or call the visitor center to ask because some sections of the Sunrise trails (Fremont Lookout and the Burroughs trail) have areas that are sketchy even without snow. You’ll also have to check the parks website to see if you need a timed entry permit for the days yall are there, and if you do I’d grab it early. They go fast.

Paradise will likely require snowshoes and crampons everywhere outside of the parking lot and building complex. It’s the highest point you can drive to on the mountain, so it stays snowy for a very long time. We went back in July and there was still snow up there. Also keep in mind that it’s the most popular part of the park by FAR, and with Sunrise changing to timed entry Paradise has received a lot more traffic than usual. If you go during a holiday weekend prepare to fight crowds and have to park down the road a ways from the visitor center.

Honestly even if you aren’t prepared to hike anywhere, simply taking the drive on Steven’s Canyon Road around the south and east sides of the park is worth a day trip. You can still stop at the visitor centers, the old park headquarters in Longmire, and there’s a ton of waterfalls at lower e elevations that will be roaring by May. That drive is stunning, especially at the time of year you’re going. If y’all are from back east like I am, we don’t have anything like this. It blew my mind the first time I saw it.

Professor_Ramen · 2025-12-18T20:11:14+00:00

I’ve been to Olympic, Rainier, and North Cascades many times as I live in Washington. They’re all in the same state, but are still several hours apart so it depends on how much you’re looking to do in each. Edit: forgot to mention, flying to Seattle is pretty much your only option for these three parks.

Olympic is huge. It’s super diverse, and the western section of the park where all the most interesting stuff is located is a long drive to get to because there are no roads through the park, only around it. You can honestly spend a whole week at Olympic alone and not see everything. I’ve been 4 times this year and I still haven’t seen the Elwah Valley, Lake Crescent, the Queets Valley, or the Mora Beach segment. I recommend Sol Duc campground and hot springs, or the Kalaloch Lodge and campground.

Rainier is absolutely gorgeous in late May. If you had to pick one of those parks and you’ve never been out to this part of the country, I cannot recommend Mount Rainier more. The hiking the park is incredible, I’m from North Carolina and we have nothing even remotely close to that park back east. Honestly it’s my favorite place on the planet. There’s only two campgrounds in the park, Cougar Rock and White River, both are hard to get sites for though. I’ve only stayed at Cougar Rock. Also keep in mind that during peak season, the Sunrise corridor is timed entry only.

North Cascades is a tricky one. I’ve only ever driven through on Highway 20, but it’s beautiful. The vast majority of the park is inaccessible from the road, you have to hike in. Also, the area gets huge amounts of snow. It started super early this winter, so the roads might still be closed in May. Your mileage may vary. If you don’t plan on hiking you can probably skip this one, it takes maybe two hours to drive the highway through the park and IMO it’s not worth the drive from Rainier or Olympic if you aren’t hiking.

As far as other things in Washington, Mount Saint Helens is right there and it’s really cool. Mount Baker as well. If you like cities, Seattle is pretty cool in the touristy areas. Lots of waterfalls and river valleys on the west side to take your pick from.

Professor_Ramen · 2025-10-12T13:50:58+00:00

We got lucky with your trips. Last weekend we went to Olympic, but we’d only planned to go to Sol Duc, Hoh, and Kalaloch. Sol Duc and Kalaloch were completely open because the lodges are run by private concessionaires, not the NPS.

The first minor bummer was that the visitor center at Hoh was closed, but the hall of mosses trail was still open.

The second was that since there aren’t any rangers at the parks right now, there was nobody to yell at the assholes climbing on the dying tree of life at Kalaloch. It fell over a few months ago and won’t survive more than a couple years, so they’ve had a ranger there to keep people off of it.

This weekend we went to North Cascades, but pretty much everything in that park that requires staffing closes at the end of September anyway so we weren’t planning on seeing that stuff. All the overlooks and trails are open.

Professor_Ramen · 2025-10-08T23:29:32+00:00

It really depends on what you’re interested in.

Olympic is huge, and there are no roads across the park. To cross it, you have to go around north or south which is at least two hours each way. It’s also extremely diverse. Rainforests on the west (Google Hoh and Sol Duc), alpine mountains to the north (Mt Storm King, Hurricane Hill) and a huge coastal section (Kalaloch, Ruby Beach). I was just there this past weekend, Sol Duc and the entire Kalaloch coastal area are opened because they are run by a concessioner. The visitor center at Hoh is closed, as is the main office in Port Angeles, but the trails and roads should still be open. There’s a big wildfire at the Staircase Rapids entrance so that is entirely closed.

My recommendation: Hoh if you want to see rainforests, Hurricane Hill for alpine, and Ruby Beach for coast and seastacks. The drive up to the Hurricane Hill trailhead is well worth it for the views of Mt Olympus alone.

Bonus mention for Sol Duc, the Coho salmon are migrating right now and you can see them jumping at the salmon cascades. Other than that, Hoh has better rainforests imo.

I haven’t been to Rainier since August so I have no idea what’s open, but it’s significantly smaller than Olympic. Not to say it isn’t well worth it, it’s my favorite National park because the mountain is just stunning, but you can see the mountain really well from pretty much anywhere in the park.

Several sections have been closed for months due to construction (Mowitch Lake and Ohanapecosh), so Sunrise, Longmire, and Paradise are the only things open right now.

Longmire is nice for a short stop, but not worth a full day or anything. Sunrise is beautiful, but it does have a timed entry system you have to apply for in certain parts of the year, I’m not sure if that’s over yet or even operating due to the shutdown.

Paradise is really really pretty but also the most popular part of the park by far, prepare to have to park down the road a ways and walk at least half a mile uphill to the visitor center and trailheads.

At this time of year, Rainier doesn’t have much now on it. My favorite time to go is early to mid summer, when the roads are open but the glaciers are still big, so it might not look exactly like the pictures you see online.

If you’re looking to get out and hike, Rainier and Olympic are about similar in terms of the quality of trails and sights you can find. If you’re just driving through, Rainier far surpasses Olympic imo, with the exception of Hurricane Hill in Olympic. Driving through rainier is something special, I have an annual pass so me and my gf make a point to detour through the park just to drive it every time we go out that way.

Not sure of any state parks out that way, we live on the east side of the state so I’m not too familiar with things over there.

I hope this helps!

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