Mount Rainier, aka Tahoma, is my favorite place to hike. It's a 14,411 foot active volcano, the most glaciated peak in the contiguous USA, featuring hundreds of miles of trails across an astonishing variety of terrain. Lush rainforests, subalpine wildflower meadows, alpine tundra, snowfields, glaciers, bizarre volcanic rock formations, wild woolly rivers, and a plethora of waterfalls can all be experienced within a single hike. Even when you are 'just' hiking through trees, constant changes in altitude plus the rain shadow difference between east and west sides of the mountain (east is drier, west very wet) means no two Rainier forests are the same.

And then there is the wildlife. I've seen deer, elk, mountain goats, marmots aplenty, mosquitoes by the bazillion, pikas, grouse, owls, foxes, and bear. Still waiting for a cougar encounter though! Before you panic about those last two: Rainier animals are used to hikers, and negative encounters vanishingly rare. Treat them with respect, avoid surprising them, keep your food out of their way, and you won't have any trouble.

Wildlife	Wildflowers
Geology	Indigenous Peoples
Logistics	Learning More