Imagine a place where the views are amazing, you get to hang out with your buddies, you can stuff yourself silly at a seemingly endless banquet table, and you can sleep in in a major way. Would it be fair to call it Paradise?
Back in mid-August, a little bee (read, some other dude’s blog post) reminded me that the wildflowers on Mount Rainier are impressive at that time of year and that the ample water from last year’s snowpack should yield a healthy crop. Memories of a trip last year (Getting High With Flowers parts one and two) only added more motivation for a return trip. A quick text to similar-minded friends and off we went.
While the weather was cooperative this year, the conditions were less than perfect. It’s been a summer full of fires this year, and smoke coming down from Canada thickened the air with a grey haze that cut visibility and muted colors.

This was a mixed blessing. Although the views were not as crisp, parking space lotto was not a factor and the trails were not as crowded with onlookers from hither and yon, come to ogle what is usually a popular explosion of flowers.
Keeping an eye closer to the trail, less obvious delights are found.
We were not the only creatures enjoying the flowers, butterflies and other bugs took in both their beauty and their nectar.
Some flowers wore more unusual crowns.
With a muff top reminiscent of the bearskin hats of British Grenadiers, the seedhead from a Pasque flower played guardian to a family of Asters.
A set of fuzzy columns reminded me of an undersea soft coral.

Further on, Indian Paintbrushes add color.
Climbing higher, skirting the edge of the timberline we found more fields of flowers and an alpine stream laying in a mossy bed.
Crossing over the ridge, the evening sun began its disappearing act, adding a dusky urgency to getting back down the trail before it got too dark.
But, you might ask, what about that banquet table, and sleeping in in a major way?
Ladies and gentlemen, let me introduce the Hoary Marmot.
This big guy was a couple of feet long and should weigh around 15 pounds. We must have seen eight or nine marmots in different areas, sometimes alone, sometimes with two or three friends (family members?) along for the walk. And for the most part, their business of the hour was munching down.
Those fields of flowers were the banquet table. So intent were they on dinner they gave us little more than a wary glance as we approached, sometimes quite close.

Although they look like a beaver with a furry tail and their whistles are heard across alpine valleys, they’re the largest members of the ground squirrel family. Eating is serious business, that big after dinner nap lasts seven or eight months.
We humans, looking upon the beauty of this area have called it Paradise. But if you were a marmot, could it be anything else?
Beautiful captures
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Thank You.
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What a magnificent hike. Mountain wildflowers are just sublime. I have a fondness for varmints, so the marmot is a delightful sight. Beautiful images, as always.
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I’ve never found another place where the mountain wildflowers are as spectacular, although there must be some comparable places out there. Marmots are always fun to come upon, but I’ve never seen so many in one outing.
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What a beautiful place, thank you for sharing your wonderful images. All those wildflowers and marmots too…. it looks like Paradise!
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This is one of those, point your camera almost anywhere and get a beautiful picture places. The challenge was limiting how many to include in this post – I probably went a bit overboard as is. I guess that could be another definition of Paradise. 🙂
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Absolutely gorgeous, Dave. A lovely walk in amazing scenery!
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Thanks, Mick. It’s not by accident that place is a National Park.
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I’m not surprised, Dave.
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What a spectacular display. The sunset shot just above the hoary marmot is magic. And I like the Pasque flowers as the green grenadier hats. This is a fantastic album.
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Thanks, Robert. I had two or three other sunset shots I was considering adding too, but that one was probably the moodiest. And those green grenadier hats are one of the things I always think of when I think, Mount Rainier wildflowers.
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I remember your posts on this last year, and it’s just as fun reading about it again. I love the shots of the flowers in the foreground and those gorgeous mountains behind. I rather like marmots (they remind me of hiking in other mountains), but that first one is a behemoth!
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It was a new visit to an old friend, how to make it interesting again? Let the pictures speak for themselves. That first marmot was a big guy, and we got fairly close. That was one thing about this trip, not only did we see more marmots, several of them were quite close!
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The high mountain meadows remind me of what one sees in the Arctic.
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You’ve been to the Arctic? Cool! (Cold?) Those meadows do spend much of the year under a layer of snow, so it’s not surprising if they share some similarities with Arctic tundra.
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Many years ago, in a galaxy far, far away, I studied periglacial geomorphology (arctic landforms). Back then, the arctic was less accessible. Today, I highly recommend placing The Dalton Highway on your bucket list. It is a four hundred mile drive from Fairbanks to Deadhorse (Prudehoe Bay).
North of the Brooks Range, the arctic meadow stretch uninterrupted from Hudson Bay to Siberia and in the summer, tens of thousands of caribou graze alongside the road. You have to be careful because every once in a while, the ten thousand on one side decide to join the ten thousand on the other side – and you have to wait until they do.
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Tells a lovely natural story on a nicely roundabout path, Dave! Wild flowers rock! Thematic connection, kind of, with my latest post so please forgive photobombed link: https://davekingsbury.wordpress.com/2017/10/02/fly-like-an-eagle/
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We are “on the road” visiting family and have been traveling for six weeks. Am way behind with reading my favorite blogs and commenting on them. But I snuck a peak into your delightful post. Oh those lupines !!! I love their color. And I have never seen or even heard of marmots before, so that and your photos are a real treat!
Peta
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Glad you were able to stop in Peta, to add a little vicarious travel to the real thing. Those lupines do have a lovely blue, don’t they?
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I love the Pasque flower! When I was a kid, we went to South Dakota practically every summer to visit family. I remember those flowers growing wild there — I think it’s their state flower.
The Hoary Marmot looks like he’d be a great character in a series of children’s books. “Harry the Hoary Marmot Discovers Mt. Rainer” — you should get on that.
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A children’s book – I never thought of that. Who says you need to have had kids to be qualified to write one? But perhaps I should defer; fending off the lawsuits triggered by trauma from the inevitable scattering of dreadful puns would be a pain. 😉
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Stunning! I don’t think I’ve ever seen a photo of a marmot before. And now i know they’re members of the ground squirrel family. Are they a protected species? I ask because when I was a little girl old ladies had marmot fur coats.
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As far as I know, they’re not protected. I understand woodchucks and groundhogs are cousins of the hoary marmot, I wonder which ones were used for coats?
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Fabulous photos! I’ve never seen so many wildflowers before!
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It’s an amazing place. Of course, it wasn’t all wildflowers, but it’s still interesting that they live up there at 5-6 thousand feet after spending much of the year under snow.
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Fabulous photos Dave. Makes me sorry I didn’t make it up there this year.
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Thanks, Rosemary. I get the impression you’ve been to a number of other cool places instead.
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The picture of the butterfly on the flower is gorgeous! In Mongolia, we literally went on a marmot hunt. They seem to be pretty elusive. Did you have to zoom to get the last shot? And I loved the views of the mountains too!
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The butterfly shot grabbed my eye right away when I was checking to results of the shoot. I was zoomed in a bit on that marmot – full frame equivalent of about 200mm, but he was only about 15 feet away.
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Where’s that love button? I’m glad you made me aware of your blog, and this post. We were up there mid-August and the trails were still deep with snow, but shortly afterwards that melted, and the fires became an issue. Still you saw fantastic wildflowers, in my mind – and I’m very jealous about the marmots. We’ve been to the mountain at least half a dozen times but haven’t seen one yet. Gives me hope.
Your photos are really nice and I thoroughly enjoyed this post – thanks again!
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Thanks, Lynn. It’s always nice to discover a new site worth following. I was just scrolling through a few of your back issues and am looking forward to the new ones. As for the marmots, I’ve seen them up there before, but not nearly as close.
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Your beautiful photos capture every bit of Paradise. The marmot and I would have to agree with your assessment of Mount Rainier.
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It’s not every day you get insight from a marmot… 😉
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Breathtaking work, Dave.
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Thanks. It’s a breathtaking place.
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Fantastic photography, even the smoke induced photos with their impressive silhouettes! I am so glad to have discovered your blog. Greetings from Canada!
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Thanks, Peter. I’m glad you stopped by. With luck, there will be more nice photos in the future.
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So beautiful. I just love alpine meadows and the amazing array of flowers. Too bad about the smoke, but you got some gorgeous photos anyway. I need to get up there next summer. 😀
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Think August for the alpine meadows….
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😀
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Wonderful pictures Dave and how great to be reminded about these wild meadows that still exist in many countries. They are just heavenly and lying down you could go to sleep from the drone of the bees and the soft whisper of the wind.
miriam
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Too bad it takes a National Park designation to preserve places like this.
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