About This Site
I am obsessed with Mount Rainier. It is my favorite place to hike, and my spirit mountain. Shortly after moving to the Pacific Northwest in 2005 I wrote to friends:
"When I wake up and see Rainier on the horizon, I think yeah, this is going to be a good day. In fact this would be a good mountain to worship: a pagan god of rock and ice and strangeness."
For over a decade I enjoyed repeatedly day hiking the same few trails: Skyline, Spray Park, Glacier Basin, Burroughs, Panhandle. I noticed and wondered about routes that went further (continuing past Panhandle Gap, and what's that path arriving at Mowich Lake from the southwest?) but I was not a backpacker so these were not for me.
In 2017 I expanded my limits by visiting Camp Muir for the first time. Friends kept asking what came next for my love of Tahoma: would I attempt a summit climb? But I have zero interest in ever standing on the top. Then in 2018 my wife suggested I could train toward hiking the Wonderland Trail, and I realized:
- YES! She was exactly right, I did want to do that.
- Before attempting such a thing I needed to broaden my horizons beyond day hiking, gaining backpacking experience on shorter trips.
- Actually, I wanted to hike EVERY trail inside Mount Rainier National Park.
And thus my Tahoma hiking project was born. The goal of exploring every trail has proven very rewarding. It has challenged and expanded me, deepening my knowledge and enhancing my appreciation of this mountain. There's something special about walking up a valley while remembering how last year I explored on the far side of those same crags, seeing the same views from a different angle and starting to understand how all the pieces fit together across different trails, weather, and seasons. It's a much deeper love than I could get from visiting an area just once. As I expected, this project has brought me beautiful sights, new places to hike, and the satisfaction of working toward a nontrivial goal. Less predictably it's also provided enjoyable research topics, solace during difficult times, and a hiking community that I cherish.
In the spring of 2020 I was missing my mountain during COVID lockdown, and decided that writing a Rainier hiking guide would be good for my mental health. Hence this website. By the time the trails reopened I was finding enough joy in documenting my explorations that I have continued to update and improve the site. As my father put it: "I feel like you are doing all the trails twice, once for the pleasure of the moment and again for reflection and sharing."
I completed my first Wonderland circuit in September 2021, and achieved my goal of hiking every maintained trail in September 2022.
Many thanks to the National Park Service for publishing the high resolution map I built this site around as public domain. Hopefully needless to say: please do not rely on my maps for navigation. They aim to inform but are insufficient to keep you un-lost.
This site includes a Wonderland Itinerary Planner which shows distance and elevation change between your choice of trailheads and campsites, and information about how to get a Wonderland permit.
Hiking Tahoma is dedicated to my wife Tracy, who varyingly tolerated, supported, encouraged, and joined in with my Rainier hiking obsession. She died of pancreatic cancer in 2023.
 Trail of the Shadows, 2007 |  Skyline Trail, 2009 |
 Dege Peak, 2014, with best friend Jenn |  Panorama Point, 2015 |
 Eagle Peak Saddle, 2020 |  Moraine Trail, 2021 |
I can be contacted via email, plus I'm usually hanging out in the Wonderland Trail Facebook group.