On the NW corner of Mt. Rainier National Park is the little-known Carbon River entrance. There is not much to do at the actual entrance, but a five mile unpaved road leads from the entrance to the Ipsut Creek Campground. This used to be a popular place to go car-camping and it was a good base camp for day hikes and access to the Wonderland Trail. Unfortunately, the Carbon River has the tendency to wash-out parts of the road every few years. The repairs cost the National Park Service millions of dollars. Recently, after closing the Carbon River Road for several years, the Park Service decided to reopen the road as a hiking/biking-only trail (no cars). The campground was re-defined as a "backcountry" campground. The road isn't very exciting to hike on; and five miles is a long way to go just to get to the trailhead of the "real" hiking trail. Now that I have a mountain bike, I seized the opportunity to do a hike that I've always wanted to do. My wonderful parents said "yes" to babysitting the kids for the day, and Jodi and I drove to the Carbon River Entrance with our mountain bikes. The biking portion was pretty easy, since the road/trail runs alongside the river. From Ipsut Creek Campground, we hiked four miles to the terminus of the Carbon Glacier and back. Due to the remoteness of these trails, the only hikers we bumped into on the trail were people doing the 93 mile Wonderland Trail, and a park ranger hiking to Mystic Lake. I got to see an avalanche of car-sized boulders fall off the glacier... good thing no one is allowed in that area. Jodi let me hike/run an extra mile up the trail to explore and then we hike back to Ipsut Creek. After 8 miles of hiking, we were a little tired and not sure how the last 5 miles of bike riding were going to feel. Turns out that the road is slightly downhill all the way to the park entrance. Wheeeee! We coasted all the way back to our van. Then we ate at a Mexican restaurant and finally came home to our kids. | 