Fremont Lookout: A Sunset Hike

Last week’s sunset hike was all about exploring a new place at a new time of day (I’m typically an avid early morning hiker/runner.) This week’s sunset hike was about experiencing a place I know well at a dramatically different time of day. Fremont Lookout is ~5.5 miles with about 800 feet of elevation gain. It’s one of those rare hikes that has an incredible visual payoff without too much sweat equity.

My friend Jenna and I left Seattle early Friday afternoon and got to the Sunrise Visitor Center with remarkably little traffic. It was still rather hazy as practically everything is on fire in the Pacific Northwest right now, but we hoped for some clear views anyway. We had some time before sunset at 8:15pm, so we added on one of my favorite parts of the Wonderland Trail towards Mystic Lake for a little extra mileage. There’s a great view of Rainier near the turnoff for Skyscraper Mountain, and I wanted to see what it would look like near sunset.

When we left the Sunrise Visitor Center, I was stunned by how few people were on the trail in the evening. It tends to be a very busy area (because it’s stunning), so it was wonderful change from the normal hustle and bustle to get a flavor of the mountain solitude we craved. What we lacked in human interaction, however, we gained in animal sightings. In the first mile we saw a cute little pika, a bear (!) down below us, and a large herd of mountain goats right next to the trail. As we continued on through the meadow, we heard many marmots whistling, and saw two of them before they walked away, tails twitching.

After a few miles through sub-alpine beauty, we reached the viewpoint, and remembered to actually take a picture of us together this time. 🙂

Then we went back down into the valley, chasing our long shadows on the way back up to Fremont Lookout.

Shockingly, there were only two other people at the lookout once we reached our destination. Again, this can be a busy spot, so it was wonderful to have the room to take photos, breath in the crisp air, and watch that glowing orb drop beneath the horizon.

We were lucky in that there were a few moments of alpenglow, right at the top of Mt. Rainier.

Pastel pinks and purples painted the sky to the east, and we could even see Glacier Peak to the north. I’ll admit that some delighted squeals and breathless “wows” may have been uttered by both of us.

It was very chilly at the lookout, so how lucky I brought a dram with me to keep me warm! (Talisker Distiller’s Edition, if you’re curious.)

A fine feature of this trail is that you can see Mount Rainier along the majority of the trail, so we were able to watch the colors change on the mountain as we hiked back to our car. The moon was impossibly bright above the mountain, and as we walked, we saw Mars, Venus, and Saturn appear. Jupiter was poised directly above the Rainier. We kept pausing on the trail to switch off our headlamps to take in the view. It was almost silent except the sounds of night insects waking up, and it was so tranquil that we could hardly take it in. Such a wonderful contrast to the cacophony of our daily lives.

Like last week, as darkness fell, we watched more constellations appear, as well as hints of the Milky Way. It. Was. Perfect.

I don’t know why it took me so long to start doing sunset hikes, but I’m here to tell you they are wonderful. And I can’t wait for the next one. <3