As you all know by now I am working in Mount Rainier National Park. If you don’t, are you actually reading this blog? But what is Mount Rainier National Park?


Mount Rainier National Park is the fifth oldest national park in the country behind Yellowstone, Yosemite, Kings Canyon, and Sequoia. It was established on March 2, 1899 by President McKinley. So the park is 111 years old.

The park contains 368 square miles or 235,625 acres (about a football field). Congress has declared hat 228,480 acres of the park as wilderness. The park has over 260 miles of maintained trails (including the 94 mile Wonderland Trail), and 147 miles of roadway (not all paved).

Each year the park is visited by 1.5 to 2 million people. Most visited between June and September.

As the name suggestion Mount Rainier National Park, is focused around Mount Rainier and the surrounding glaciers. Mount Rainier is 14,410 feet above sea level and is an episodically active volcano. Episodically active means that it will erupt sometime in the future but is quite right now. Mount Rainier is the tallest volcano and the fifth highest peak in the contiguous United States. The last estimated eruption was between 1820 and 1894. Mount Rainier is covered in 35 square miles of permanent ice and snow.