familiar locations and feelings when backpacking. I once show one of your articles about the flowers to my husband, who was completely amazed by your hardwork!
Mt. Rainier used to be our backyard, where my husband, my son and I spent countless weekens and holidays, years around, for our best part of wilderness.
We consider it a sacred place, we do worship it, and we wish other people enjoy it as well!
However, here is one thing I cannot help but wishing to point it out. It might be too harsh, and I just want to bring it up to our awareness for our future trips:
Please please do NOT wash yourself in any creeks, especially in high elevations, because it might contaminate the water sources that a lot of other hikers and animals use them as their drinking water. A lot of old schools as I've known, don't use any filtration system when hiking in Mt. Rainier. They just assume that the glacier water is clean and safe.
You could bring the water 200 feet away from the creek, to wash yourself. And you should wash your clothes/cooking utensils away from the water as well. My husband even doesn't allow me to rinse my camp slippers in any creek.
Lakes might be different story though. Some die-hard hikers however, try very hard not to contaminate any water sources in the backcountry.
Thank you again for your writing!
