Mt Rainier Natl Park: Eunice Lake and Tolmie Lookout

Today I could hike one of the best trails in the Mt Rainier National Park: the Eunice Lake and Tolmie Lookout trail. It is a very interesting hike, with a number of different things to see. To get there, you need to enter the National Park via a rough dirt road (in case you're thinking about doing it too, regular cars can do it, as long as they drive slow and easy), which itself has great views already, even if they are vertigo inducing. Interestingly enough the trailhead is at a lake itself: you park by Mowich Lake and you start the hike already at a high altitude. The trail starts flat but sooner than you think it becomes very steep - my thighs are still remembering that. It was a beautiful clear day, but that also meant that it was hot even at altitude, which resulted in a very sweaty hike. The rewards were great, though: soon we were reaching the subalpine fields, where the trees are much shorter and more sparse, and we started seeing amazing views of Mt Rainier nearby. After going up some more, we reached the alpine meadows, which are beautiful, especially in a clear day such as today. We finally reached a jewel of a lake incrusted in the mountains: Eunice Lake. Its waters are cold and incredibly transparent, and it is hard to describe how beautiful it is to see such a lake in the middle of the alpine slopes. However, the trail doesn't stop there: you go up even more and you reach the summit of Tolmie Peak, where there is an old lookout tower. You have amazing views of all the mountains around you and of the lake underneath you, plus a privileged place to just stare at the snows of Mt Rainier. A recommendation: because this is such a special trail, it gets crowed on weekends, so if you want to go it's better to do so during the week.