Day 3: Mt Rainier National Park, Washington

After spending the night in the hotel and getting some breakfast we all met up in Taits room to watch two documentary's on the Hanford Restoration site which we would be visiting the next day. They had a big presentation set up for us and Tait wanted to make sure we had a good idea on the background of the project so that we could ask some questions. The first documentary was more of an overview the B-reactor, the first full scale nuclear reactor in the world. It explained that this reactor was used to produce the plutonium used in the Fat Man bomb used on Nagasaki in World War II. This documentary went through the process of how the plant converted uranium to plutonium and other production methods. The second documentary provided a well rounded overview of the site, stating that it is the most polluted site in the U.S., how it was the site of the first nuclear reactor, and that it is the largest and most complex clean-up project in the world. After finishing the documentary we packed our vans and headed out, but we first had to stop at an outfitter store as Jenny and Lydia had left their boots at the beach the day before.

Different species living at different elevations on the trail

 We had our first strenuous hike of the trip in Mt.

Summer snow on the trail

Rainier National Park. We were trying to get to the sunrise lookout so that we could get some good pictures of the Mt. Rainier Summit. The hike was tiring but the scenery was spectacular. As we passed 4000ft we began to see snow on the ground, which is a very weird experience knowing it was hitting the 90s back home. We had a couple slips but nothing major and we soldiered on through the snow, constantly pushing the professors to let us continue. Unfortunately time was not on our side and it was starting to get dark out so we had to hike back down. With so much snow up top and alot of our group being winded, Hossay showed us a cool trick on how to get down, by jamming your head into the snow first you make stairs for yourself as you go down which definitely made our decent faster.  Before we reached the bottom Tait and Hossay gave us a quick lecture on the trophic levels of these mountains how varying elevations will have different species based on the available energy. Tait discussed climate change and how these changes will in tern affect the species by affecting the available energy. This was a very interesting lecture because we noticed these things in every place we went hereafter, as we moved down the coast from areas of high elevation to low elevation and back again.

Mt. Rainier rising out of the clouds

 We left the Park and headed towards our campsite which, after about four hours of driving back and fourth on the same road we surmised did not exist. Luckily we were able to find a perfect spot nestled in the woods along the road which provided us with an amazing view. Knowing that we were visiting the Hanford site the next day and we all wanted to be rested and focused during the lecture we all turned in early.

Our improvised campsite with a crazy view