A Rainier ritual that still can be called Paradise
MOUNT RAINIER NATIONAL PARK, Wash. - When I was growing up in Seattle, we had one summer ritual: driving to Mount Rainier and spending a night at the Paradise Inn. We were a family of eight with little money to spare, but my mother considered this magnificent destination a necessary expense.
My sisters and I were thrilled to stay in the lodge. We would play Chinese checkers at the massive log tables, prowl the gift shop, and after dinner, watch the park ranger's slide show in the lobby. Early in the morning, my mother would march us up the mountain. While we waited for sunrise, we'd work on the secret whistle that she taught us to get the marmots to sit up and listen.
Over the years, I have often traveled to Paradise, grateful for the access to the mountain that a room here provides. I could count on the same experience every time: plain rooms without televisions or telephones, a magnificent lobby, sharp-smelling cedar boxes in the gift shop, and, depending on the weather, Mount Rainier framed in any window facing north. To my mind, nothing needed changing.
So it was with some trepidation that I made my plans this summer to visit the inn, which had reopened in May after a two-year, $22.5 million renovation. Would the lobby be updated, the rooms accessorized? Would Paradise seem strange?
The inn opened in 1917 in the shadow of World War I. Built at 5,400-foot elevation from Alaska yellow cedar logged nearby and rocks unearthed by the powerful Nisqually Glacier, it cost $91,000.
Ninety-one years later, the lodge stands, symbolizing the values of that era: a reverence for nature, shelter built from surrounding resources, and a destination that encourages people to experience wilderness. Paradise, one of the great lodges of the Pacific Northwest, is a National Historic Landmark.
Driving to the inn is a pleasure, in part because the roads were engineered to provide spectacular vistas. I took my time, driving 19 miles in four hours, starting at the Nisqually Park entrance in the southwest corner of Mount Rainier National Park. Even though it was overcast, there were many reasons to stop - waterfalls, an old-growth forest, a log footbridge across a creek. At Cougar Rock, the cold, milky gray water of the Nisqually River rushed down a corridor littered with massive boulders and broken trees, a stark reminder of the perilous beauty of this 14,400-foot active volcano.
Paradise Inn, located at treeline in subalpine meadows, features a steeply pitched roof, dormer windows, and great stone chimneys. Pushing through heavy doors, I was relieved to see that the lobby, the heart of the place, was mostly unchanged except for a general brightening with natural light and newly laid and waxed Douglas fir floors. The 14-foot hand-carved grandfather clock still stood by one of the two massive fireplaces and the parchment lampshades, painted with native flowers, hung from the beams. Split log tables, weighing 1,500 pounds each, looked as if they hadn't moved an inch.
Most of the renovations involved structural changes - upgraded fire suppression systems, a seismic retrofit included replacing the original foundation of stacked rock "rubble" and dismantling the fireplaces, each stone numbered, and reassembled around a cement concrete lining. The inn was also made handicap accessible.
The cool and overcast weather that day had brought people indoors. A fire burned in one of the fireplaces, and visitors sat in the oversized chairs and sofas, talking, playing cards, and napping. No one talked on a cellphone (there is no service), and many people read.
Besides the lobby, the interior includes the Tatoosh Café, the dining room, a small gift shop, and not much more. Outside is another story. Mount Rainier is a popular climbing destination; in 2005, nearly 9,000 people attempted to climb it and just over half of them reached the summit. While at Paradise, called the "snowiest place on earth," visitors can walk or hike a variety of trails. The 947 inches of snow that fell last winter left the paths still snow-covered in late July.
After stashing my bags in my no-nonsense room in the annex, I went for a short walk down the hill to the Jackson visitors center to take in the exhibits and bookstores. On a clear day climbers can be seen as tiny specks moving up the Muir Snowfield from the observation area. A new visitors center, adjacent to the inn, will replace the current one.
That evening, I went on the ranger stroll, a longstanding tradition at Paradise. "What mountain?" joked one of the group gathered in front of the inn. Where the 14,410-foot Mount Rainier should have been there was a snowbank that dissolved into dense white clouds. Cool, damp, in the low 50s, with little to no visibility, we could have been anywhere. The trouble with Paradise, clearly, is the weather.
Ruth Graves, 78, a volunteer park ranger leading the walk, reported that the sky was expected to clear overnight. She told a story of Floyd Schmoe, the park's first naturalist and ranger, based on his 1959 book, "A Year in Paradise" (Mountaineers Books, 2d edition, 1999). Schmoe "tried to do something worthwhile every day of his life," said Graves, who might have been talking about herself.
A retired high school chemistry teacher, she has a profound connection to Mount Rainier, she said, calling the park a "beautiful example of the most magnificent kind of nature." For the past four summers, she has driven here from her home in Ann
Last year her son B. Jeffrey Graves, 47, lost his way in the fog while hiking in the Tatoosh Range and fell to his death. Despite the tragedy, Graves came back this summer. She finished her talk with a quote from "A Year in Paradise": "We had gazed across majestic landscapes bounded only by the fading blue of vast distances. Our horizon had seemed as wide, it seemed, as the world is wide." As she spoke, the clouds behind her started to thin and the Tatoosh Range emerged.
Later I found a table in the dining room, ordering the signature elk dish followed by blackberry pie. After dinner, I returned to the lobby and waited for the ranger lecture to begin. Maureen McLean, the volunteer ranger, told a story, illustrated by power point photographs, about a young woman who came to Mount Rainier in the summer of 1915 and hiked (in a skirt) all over the mountain, part of a "racy" coed expedition. When McLean finished her talk, she thanked her grandmother, the young woman featured in her story, for introducing two generations to the mountain she loves.
Before turning in, I stepped outside as the sky darkened. The smell of snow, pine, and wood smoke was in the air. A faint outline of the Tatoosh Range to the south was visible and bright stars were beginning to blink in the clearing sky. As they say in the Northwest, the mountain had "come out."
Jackleen de La Harpe can be reached at jadelaha@yahoo.com. 