First Time for everything!

Two weeks ago at our Tuesday Night Bible Study, Brian invited us to join him and Melissa at Paradise at Mt. Rainier. Several of us said that we’d go, so on Saturday morning (March 1) we loaded up my car and Brian’s and headed to the Mountain. For more pictures, you can check out my link (on the right) to Brian and Melissa’s website.

Don’t Brian and Eric looked relaxed and ready to build an igloo?



They opened the gate at Longmire about 5 minutes after we got to it, so we were some of the first vehicles up the road to Paradise. We had lunch at the visitor center and then started getting things ready to hike out to find our perfect spot. Eric decided that he needed to supervise things from above:



After snowshoeing for a little bit, we came to the perfect spot for our igloo. Kristin, Brian, and Eric start to clear the area.



Eric and Brian work on getting the ice blocks cut out of our quarry, which later became the center area of our igloo:



Here’s the trail that we blazed to our spot. The trail goes off to the left through the tree clearing.



At one point during the afternoon, Melissa headed back to the visitor center to warm up and cheer up little Abee. They came out awhile later to spend a few minutes with us, but then went back again.

There were some cool shadows from the trees, so I tried to capture the beauty of it:



After getting several levels up on the igloo. Eric had an idea to build an arch over the doorway. It stayed up for a few seconds after Kristin and Michelle moved, but then someone touched it and it fell down. Because of the short lifespan of the arch, I got the only picture of it:



After the arch collapsed, we used our poles to support the entryway. Michelle, me, and Kristin take a break from shoring up the walls:



We ended up having to move our quarry, so here’s Eric taking a break at the new one to pose for a picture:



By this time, we realized that the bigger ice blocks work the best, so Eric and Brian were trying to cut the biggest ones they could, while still being able to carry them:



Since I had some time, I was playing around with one of my favorite pictures from that day. This is the original picture:



This is the same picture in Black and White:



This is that same picture in Sepia:



Since we knew we didn’t have enough time to finish the roof before darkness set in, we decided to hike up the hill next to us to see if we could get a glimpse of the Mountain. Checking out the view are Michelle, Kristin, Eric, and Brian:



Here’s the view that we had:



On the ride up to Paradise, Eric told Michelle and I that he wanted to do some tree jumping and here he took the opportunity to try it:



This wasn’t his best landing, but he still sunk in the snow a little:



After hiking or sliding back down the hill, we took a few pictures of the igloo, before we had to destory it. Brian and Eric are admiring their handiwork and contemplating their next moves:



Action shot of Eric throwing an ice block to destroy the igloo:



I took still photos and Michelle took video as Kristin, Brian, and Eric destroyed our igloo:



After all their hard work destroying it, they needed a quick break before heading back to the cars:



Once we got back to the vehicles, we hightailed it out of there, since they closed the gate at Longmire at 7 pm. We wanted to have dinner, so we stopped at a great little place not too far out of the Park, called the Copper Creek Inn. We had a great time and can’t wait to go again and to finish our next one.