A few words...

An excerpt from AA's Rainier packet...

"Here are some facts about Mount Rainier. Its height is 14,410 feet, making it the fourth highest mountain in the continental United States. Its glaciers hold more snow and ice than the twelve other Cascade volcanoes combined. About two million people visit the mountain every year. In that same year, ten thousand attempt to climb it and a little more than half succeed.
Those are the facts. They don’t begin to tell the story.
 
Mount Rainier occupies a unique place in the culture and lore of the Pacific Northwest. People here develop a personal relationship with the mountain. They call it “my mountain” and when it shrugs off its misty shroud they say “the mountain is out.” People who have lived in the Northwest all their lives still stop and stare when Rainier reveals itself. The moment crackles with the thrill of nature being caught unaware, like seeing an eagle snatch a sockeye from Puget Sound. Mount Rainier is at once the most public symbol of the Pacific Northwest and its most sacred private icon. We look at Rainier and feel love for a mountain. It inspires in us a feeling akin to spiritual awe: reverence, adoration, humility."

- Bruce Barcott