Ready?
[Narrator 1] So much of Mount Rainier is the mountain, so it's
very much up and down and yet the Eastside trail is
relatively easy to access, particularly if you have two cars,
and it's not that steep, and it's not a hard hike, and it let's
you explore a really interesting area with lots of waterfalls and forest
and I think it's a trail that is more approachable than many
people realize.
[Narrator 2] It's different in the way that most trails
in the park you're going to get some
sort of sweeping view of the mountain or of a valley of some kind
where as on the Eastside trail you are very much
in the woods and you are in the woods the entire
time and that creates just a whole different atmosphere
and a whole different kind of space.
[chittering squirrel]
[bird calls]
[splashing footsteps]
[roaring water]
[Narrator 2] When you're in the woods you have time to take
a different perspective on it all. There's no grand sweeping vistas so
some of the time we spent examining some of the
smaller parts of the forest and I really enjoyed that.
[music]
[Narrator 1] I think the Grove is really an interesting
dichotomy in the park because on one hand it
is one of the most visited areas in the park and it's fairly structured
you know, you're walking wood walkways and things like that, and yet
when you're on that island and you're in these big trees
it really does feel like a special place, where you can have these moments of
sort of quiet reflection and I think that's just
the presence of the trees and they're just so... awe inspiring?
It's just seems to make people quiet. You know, it takes you outside of yourself.
[music]