I had seen paradise before on Mt. Rainier, setting out for ski mountaineering from the Mountaineers Hut. Each time I had arrived in Paradise I had crossed Cayuse pass entering from Black Diamond. Our highway approach this trip had entered from White Pass via Yakima, Washington after crossing the Columbia below McNary Dam and driving by the truewaste land of Hanford, where the defunct Trojan core reactors were being burried in their cement tombs. Yakima is known for its apples and hops(thanks to the British Scott, Tom Grant, and his brew pub), yet few know it for its views of both Mt. Adams and Mt. Rainier -- Adams to the South, Rainier to the West. We had stayed the night in Yakima after I had realized the one piece of my equipment I had left in Boise was my helmet; the equivalent of leaving a peep at home before a large backcountry powder ski. Allowing our fingers to do the walking, we had found a mountain supply shop that would open at 9am the following morning. We stayed near the Yakima River, on the front lawn of a KOA camp awaking early enough to avoid their luxery tax for our bivuoac. Next to the KOA we made tea in a state park that didn’t open until 8am. The park had the largest flock of woodducks I had witnessed and an older man who picked up garbage on his bike in the early morning. We never met the resident ranger who opened the front gate which we had driven around. While waiting for the first employee of the only mountain supply shop in Yakima we reviewed some of the route maps which I had from previous climbing attempts as well as some orienteering literature. When he arrived I was able to rent the only helmet he had in the back. A yellow sticker stood out vibrantly on the green plastic. As he handed me the helmet he smiled and said it was the only one he had for rent. The sticker read “W-E-I-R-D”, but I was happy to rent rather than purchase a new helmet. We drove up the Tieton River after turning off the Naches River out of Yakima. The Tieton flora has a western semblance to it, more of an Idaho flavor to these biased eyes, than of a Washington passage. Large Ponderosa dominate the basalt canyon. Rabbit Brush, Bitter Brush, Sage Brush. The Rabbit Brush was in bloom, an inviting yellow for a fall day. Beyond White Pass the highway begins to drop into the Ohanapecosh River with views of Rainier’s massif as the road winds down -- this view from the East has a near perfect gander of the Muir Snowfield, the Cowlitz Glacier, the Ingraham Glacier and the Disapointment Cleavor. Combined all of these glaciated, volcanic icons and you have one of the first acsents ever on the moutntain, called the Ingraham-Disapointment Cleavor route, our route, first climbed my John Muir nearly a hundred years earlier. Once to Ohanapecosh the road begins to climb towards the Mt. Rainier Park Entrance, past the Ohanapecosh State Campground that used to be a Hot Spring Resort at the turn of the Century. Today the ground soaks up all of the 120 degree water that flows at 600 gallons a minute. Unusable without taking a shovel and making a hole, as well as a scene, to soak. Incidentally, the water is rich in lithium, in case this is one of your mineral needs. The park fee to enter is steep -- $10 for three days. For the $10 purchace you garner a standardized looking National Park map. The road then winds through a tunnel and miles of switch back, past the Grove of the Patriarches(Huge old growth Cedar and Doug Fir) and Box Canyon, next to the Tatoosh Range, past Reflection Lake and then to Paradise with it’s point blank view of the Nisqually Glacier. We had arrived.