Virinda and the Valley

The year was 1885. Virinda Longmire, wife of The Mountain's first white settler and namesake of the National Park Inn, rode a horse to the high meadow and exclaimed, "O what a paradise!" The name stuck. And for good reason.

Superlatives trip off the tongue when it comes to Paradise, the most popular stop at our favorite destination, Mount Rainier National Park. A 5,400-foot high alpine meadow that overlooks the Nisqually Glacier, Paradise sits on an architectural abomination of a visitor center, a wood-and-cement "flying saucer" that landed in the mid-sixties.

Never mind the center. This luscious landscape boasts more vitality and vivacity than any mountain should. Its meadows and wildflowers are world-renowned. The stuff of legends. Naturalist John Muir called the Paradise valley "The most extravagantly beautiful of all the alpine gardens I ever beheld in all my mountain-top wanderings."

We agree. Even in Paradise snow.*

Between October and May up to 30 feet of snow smothers the subalpine park that reclines on Rainier's southern hip. Come June the snow escapes in watery arteries that flow into the Paradise River, which joins the Nisqually River, which expires in the churning tides of Puget Sound, which empties into the Pacific. Ragged islands of rock appear in May. By June they've broadened into Lilliputian Hawaiis scattered throughout a sea of white. As the rocky islands continue to rise, the snow retreats to shady nooks beneath subalpine firs. The meadows emerge. And with them, the world-famous Paradise flower fields.

Liberated from their refrigerated slumber, the Paradise meadows erupt in a glorious bouquet of Renoir pastels for a few fleeting weeks each summer. Creamy white dollops of avalanche lilies race petite yellow glacier lilies, chasing the snow uphill. Waxy-yellow petals of Suksdorf's buttercup line thawing waterways. Wooly tufts of Indian paintbrush drip scarlet, magenta and white among the furry, dew-silvered leaves of Western anemones. Drooping spikes of tightly rolled, gray green leaves thrust up here and there, quickly unfurling into the huge, pleated skirts of giant hellebore. Suds of soapy-white marsh marigolds bathe wetter realms. Round clusters of fragrant Sitka Valerian bivouac near pink bistorts, red-spotted monkey flowers and purple lupine.

These vast carpets of floral color brush an iridescent canvas, but the wildflower meadows are as delicate as they are dazzling. Indeed, meadow stomping is about the worst crime you can commit in Mount Rainier National Park outside of murder. Every summer the meadows host an eight-week run of rainbow blooms. Every summer nearly two million heels threaten to grind them into dust. It drives the rangers nuts.

Seattle author Bruce Barcott notes, "The park has even commissioned studies of the problem. One group of researchers wracked up a profile of the typical off-trail trespasser, the way the FBI profiles serial killers. (The most common stompers: teenagers). Others tested signs to determine the most effective deterrent. "Off Trail Hikers May be Fined" worked best, but the rangers thought it a little harsh. The most effective meadow preservative turns out to be simple social pressure." Like four badged "Junior Park Rangers" ready to dispense Red-Winged wrath to any would-be meadow stomping kid.

In Lummi Indian legend Mount Rainier deserted her husband, Mount Baker, and took all the choicest fruits and flowers with her. On summer afternoons when the Chinook winds flutter their alpine frocks and frolic over blushing swells of mountain heather, lavender asters, shaggy white anemones, and the flaming heads of Indian paintbrush, you can't help but feel the legend is true. And that Virinda was right.

* Paradise is on record as "The snowiest place on earth." In 1972 it received a world record snowfall of 1,122 inches in one season.

Story ID:	745
Written by:	Kristine L. (bio, link, contact, other stories)
Story type:	Travel
Location:	-- usa
Year:	2004