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Mount Rainier National Park is the United States National Park that includes the iconic Mount Rainier and surrounding land totaling 236,381 acres.
Table of Contents
Landscape
The park includes (of course) Mt. Rainier which is a volcano and in the surrounding landscape, you might find meadows with wildlflowers in the Summer, waterfalls, glaciers (flanking the mountains), and plenty of wildlife. The park includes a great deal of old-growth forest.
Map and Entrances
As it’s a National Park, you’ll either need to pay a fee at entry or have a National Park pass to get in.
Mt. Rainier National Park has five entrances! The park’s website urges visitors to check the map and not just rely on GPS to get to one of the entrances.
We were going to enter a map pin with directions for each entrance — but as some places — like the Chinook Pass entrance pictured in the photo above — may close in the winter, we’ve decided just to link to the NPS website for this as we don’t want to be misleading.
Please check this page on the NPS website for more detailed directions to each entrance, as well as a map and information about road closures.
Routes
When we post any new routes in the park, we’ll add them here. We have at least one we haven’t posted yet!
If you have a route you’d like to add you can add a route here.
Photos
Below are photos taken around Mount Rainier National Park that we’ve added or visitors have added. We may have larger copies of these photos on PNWLens, but if we do, we’ll try to add a link in the image description.
If you’re interested in adding an image to this gallery, you must be registered and logged in to access the photo upload form below this gallery
Mount Rainier National Park Books and Guides
Below are some recommended resources for visiting the park.
Park Maps and Day Hike Resources
- Scale: 1 : 100000
- Folded Dimensions: 4.25 x 9.25 in
- Waterproof: yes
- Recommended Use: hiking, backpacking in Washington
- National Geographic Maps (Author)
- Judd, Ron C. (Author)
- English (Publication Language)
- 240 Pages – 03/19/2019 (Publication Date) – Sasquatch Books (Publisher)
- National Geographic Maps (Author)
- English (Publication Language)
- 48 Pages – 04/18/2023 (Publication Date) – National Geographic Maps (Publisher)
- Skjelset, Mary (Author)
- English (Publication Language)
- 136 Pages – 06/04/2024 (Publication Date) – Falcon Guides (Publisher)
- Asars, Tami (Author)
- English (Publication Language)
- 256 Pages – 05/29/2018 (Publication Date) – Mountaineers Books (Publisher)
Wonderland Trail
Below are some guides for hiking the Wonderland Trail, which is a 93 mile hike that goes around Mount Rainier. Hiking the trail (we have not done so and likely won’t at this point, but would have loved to) requires getting a wilderness permit and only so many are given out every year. There’s an early-access lottery that opens in February each year.
- Asars, Tami (Author)
- English (Publication Language)
- 272 Pages – 10/01/2024 (Publication Date) – Mountaineers Books (Publisher)
- HIKING WONDERLAND TRAIL
- Asars, Tami (Author)
- English (Publication Language)
- 256 Pages – 07/24/2012 (Publication Date) – Mountaineers Books (Publisher)
- Wonderland Trail #1014
- National Geographic Maps (Author)
- English (Publication Language)
- 24 Pages – 04/16/2018 (Publication Date) – Natl Geographic Society Maps (Publisher)
Questions and Answers
Below is a forum for asking (and answering) questions, you can also find it on our forums page. If you have an answer to a posted question, please feel free to post your answer.
Wikipedia and List of On and Off-Site Related Resources
When available, we import some Wikipedia information to supplement terms. If available, you’ll find that below followed by a list of on and offsite related articles and automatically linked articles on our website that mention this term. Note that you’ll need to scroll down below the Wikipedia stuff to find the related content list. We hope to change this in the future.
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Mount Rainier National Park is a national park of the United States located in southeast Pierce County and northeast Lewis County in Washington state. The park was established on March 2, 1899, as the fourth national park in the United States, preserving 236,381 acres (369.3 sq mi; 956.6 km2) including all of Mount Rainier, a 14,410-foot (4,390 m) stratovolcano. The mountain rises abruptly from the surrounding land with elevations in the park ranging from 1,600 feet to over 14,000 feet (490–4,300 m). The highest point in the Cascade Range, Mount Rainier is surrounded by valleys, waterfalls, subalpine meadows, and 91,000 acres (142.2 sq mi; 368.3 km2) of old-growth forest. More than 25 glaciers descend the flanks of the volcano, which is often shrouded in clouds that dump enormous amounts of rain and snow.
| Mount Rainier National Park | |
|---|---|
 Mount Rainier from above Myrtle Falls | |
  Location in Washington  Location in the United States | |
| Location | Pierce County and Lewis County, Washington, United States |
| Nearest city | Tacoma |
| Coordinates | 46°51′N 121°45′W / 46.850°N 121.750°W |
| Area | 236,381 acres (956.60 km2) |
| Established | March 2, 1899 |
| Visitors | 1,622,395 (in 2022) |
| Governing body | National Park Service |
| Website | nps |
Mount Rainier is circled by the Wonderland Trail and is covered by glaciers and snowfields totaling about 35 square miles (91 km2). Carbon Glacier is the largest glacier by volume in the contiguous United States, while Emmons Glacier is the largest glacier by area. Mount Rainier is a popular peak for mountaineering with some 10,000 attempts per year with approximately 50% making it to the summit.
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