Mount Rainier National Park

Year Established: 1899
Annual Visitors: 1.67 Million
Size: 236,380 Acres
State: Washington

Best Time to Visit Mount Rainier National Park

July to September

If you are planning to visit more national parks, check out our complete list of all US National Parks.

Best Experiences in Mount Rainier National Park

• Skyline Trail
• Fremont Lookout
• Tolmie Peak Hike

A Brief History

Mount Rainier is a supervolcano that is surrounded by glaciers. It can be seen from Seattle and Tacoma, and it is on the Ring of Fire. Three-quarters of the 450 volcanoes on Earth are along the ring, which is a path along the Pacific Ocean where volcanoes and earthquakes are common.

Mount Rainier hasn’t exploded in more than 200 years, which is a good thing…

At 14,410 feet tall, its icy slopes seem to call climbers like a clarion call. Every year, about 10,000 of them answer its call and try to climb to the top.

In the early 1960s, Jim Whittaker trained here to climb Mount Everest for the first time by an American.

Hikers also come to the park in large numbers to see the wildflower meadows that cover the lower slopes. These meadows are filled with blue-purple alpine asters, red harsh paintbrush, white avalanche lilies, and yellow buttercups. Those who want to explore the park’s old forests can get lost in dense Douglas fir, mountain hemlock, and western red cedar forests.

Mount Rainier RV Camping

If you are looking for nearby RV camping options for Mount Rainier National Park or in Washington, consider checking out our other post:

• Best RV Parks in Washington
• Best RV Resorts in Washington

Visitor Information

Fees

Individuals 15 years old and younger are admitted free of charge.

Weekly Park Passes

$15.00 per person/cyclist

$30.00 per vehicle

$25.00 per motorcycle

Passes valid for 7 days.

Annual Park Pass

Mount Rainier Annual Pass – $55

Contacting Mount Rainier National Park

Phone Number

360-569-2211

Visitor Centers

Longmire Museum

At Mount Rainier National Park, the Longmire Museum is a great place to find out about what this amazing park offers. The museum has information about the area and local history. It also has a gift shop, picnic tables, and restrooms. The park rangers are helpful and can advice on which trails to hike while you’re there.

Henry M Jackson Memorial Visitor Center at Paradise

The Jackson Visitor Center is in Paradise, on the south side of Mount Rainier. It is open all summer, but only some days and hours in the winter. Inside the visitor center, there are public restrooms, a ranger or volunteer-run information desk, food services, a gift shop, a movie about the park, and displays about the plants, animals, and volcano.

Ohanapecosh Visitor Center

The Ohanapecosh Visitor Center is in the southeast corner of the park. It is a calm place to go after seeing the big views from Paradise and Sunrise. You can drive down from Paradise to get to the visitor center, or you can go 12 miles south from Packwood.

The visitor center is right next to the popular Ohanapecosh Campground, which is a good place to stay for the night. The small visitor center is in an old-growth forest and has hands-on displays of animals, trees, and the old-growth forest. It also has information about hiking and guidebooks.

There is no cafe or food there. You can walk the self-guided trail and the 4-mile Hot Springs Nature Trail through the forest to the site of the 1920s hot springs resort.

Sunrise Visitor Center

Sunrise is Mount Rainier’s highest visitor center. It is in the parkland meadows of Yakima Park at a height of 6,400 feet. Sunrise is just as beautiful as the more popular Paradise, with close-up views of the huge Emmons Glacier and hundreds of acres of meadows full of wildflowers. Mount Rainier’s rain shadow makes the northeast corner of the park drier. Sunrise, as the name suggests, is one of the first places in the park to catch the early morning light.

But because Sunrise is so high up, it is covered in snow for most of the year, which makes it hard to get to. The 16-mile paved road to Sunrise from SR 410 is usually open from late June to early October, and the visitor center is usually open from early July to early September.