As Evan mentioned, the weather was not the post-card stuff that is the usual Mt. Rainier objective. But, the cool, cloudy weather made the 9-mile hike quite pleasant. At the risk of overdoing the cute factor, here are more photos/videos of the very photogenic White-tailed Ptarmigan families as well as a couple of the immature Horned Larks.
WTPT: http://youtu.be/xO5ff-frqJ0
HOLA: http://youtu.be/z0E04VD8-P0

There were several flocks of vocal Clark's Nutcrackers as well:
CLNU: http://youtu.be/AaR4CvzSLSs

A juvenile Golden-crowned Kinglet appeared at the Mt. Fremont Lookout, looking a little lost and struggling in the wind. A couple of photos are in this set:
https://picasaweb.google.com/104613265151815506340/MtRainierNP

When we ran this trip last year, we had to traverse snow fields; this year, the only residual snow was at Frozen Lake. Also, last year at the same time, the Mountain Bluebirds were still feeding their young nesting in the rafters of the park building at Sunrise, while this year, all the juveniles were already out foraging with the adults. What a difference a year makes!

Scott Ramos
Seattle

P.S. 5:00 am seems a little late ;-)


On Aug 17, 2013, at 10:37 PM, Evan Houston <evanghouston at yahoo.com> wrote:

> Hi Tweeters,
>
> Scott Ramos and I led a field trip to Sunrise, Mt. Rainier today. The weather was mostly cloudy, somewhat foggy, and cool, and we also got an extra-early start time (well, at least for me), meeting in Seattle at 5am.