The BIG Hike

Last year we had the awesome privilege and opportunity to meet and hike with the Eubank family. Dave and Karen, along with their three children, are missionaries who live in northern Thailand and work in Burma. You can read more about their work with the Free Burma Rangers HERE.

We were so impressed with this family - with their passion for God, their passion for missions and their passion for adventure. We've kept in touch with them all year and were thrilled to hear they were coming back to the states and have been looking forward to meeting up with them to hike Pinnacle Peak again this year.

And that's what we did yesterday. But first things first.

On Wednesday we drove up to Mt. Rainier National Park and camped.

We set up camp and then headed out to see a little bit of the park. We saw LOTS of deer. This one was actually right by our campsite.

It was a bit cloudy, but we still had some good views of Mt. Rainier.

And this is looking down at one of the moraines ~ Kayleigh thought this was really pretty.

We also stopped and got some photos of Christine Falls.

We even caught a pretty sunset.

Meanwhile back at the campsite....Sydney had made this sign because we were expecting the Eubank family to join us sometime in the middle of the night when they got to the park.

They ended up not coming to the campground, but just slept in their car at the trailhead because they got in at 3 am.

We met them at the trailhead and immediately the girls began feeding the very friendly birds. The girls would put bark on their heads and the birds would swoop down, thinking it was food.

Sometimes they would even land there for a couple seconds. The would also land in your hand - very tame.

After a while, everyone had arrived and we were ready to hit the trail. This is a photo of us at the beginning.

This is where we were headed - Pinnacle Peak is the tall peak on the right.

There was a lot of snow - more than last year - and so we took a different route up than we went last year. We basically hiked straight up and at times it was very steep.

We had absolutely fantastic views of Mt. Rainier.

We made it to the "saddle" and then things got trickier. Last year Kayleigh and I stopped at the saddle while Kevin and Sydney went up. Kayleigh really, really wanted to go to the top this year and so we tried. But it got tricky when we had to traverse this field of snow - the vertical patch of snow to the right.

We started across as a family - tied to each other and with plenty of ice axes - but I wasn't too confident with my skills and the girls were slipping quite a bit. Plus, Kayleigh had to go to the bathroom pretty bad. So we turned around and went back. 

At this point, Kay and I decided not to proceed and Kevin and Sydney went on. 

They got across just fine and headed up there to the summit.

Kayleigh and I hung out and enjoyed some of the most spectacular views.

Mt. Adams

Mt. St. Helens

Mt. Rainier

Last year we saw a mountain goat, so this year I was looking for one. Sure enough....on the next peak over we saw this guy (little speck in the middle).

So while Kayleigh and I were hanging out, the rest of the group still had quite a ways to go.

Finally they got to the top.

And then it was time to come down. Down climbing is much more dangerous than climbing up, so Sydney rappelled down.

And getting down the steep snow we all climbed up was really fun - time to glissade! I took this photo because the clouds were really cool and there was a rainbow ring around the sun.

This is getting long so I'll end with a couple photos of wildlife we saw on our way out of the park.

We were blessed to have the Eubank family drive down to Oregon with us and stay the night - on their way to California. It was great seeing them again - next time we see them we hope it's in Thailand!