4 Wheels 4 Girls

July 25th, I was suddenly awoken and rushed out the door and out into what was supposed to be a parking lot but was complete whiteness. I could barely even tell where Dad and my sisters were! I finally spotted them and ran to catch up. Where on Earth were we going? I asked where the visitor center was, and I didn’t get an answer, but two seconds later, I almost ran in to the building. All of us were freezing until we finally we were in the visitor center. We were walking in a cloud!

Can you see Mt. Rainier behind us? Neither could we.

From the visitor center, we couldn’t see anything because of the fog. But once we got a little down the mountain, it was clear and I could see Mount Rainier. I found out that Mount Rainier is a giant volcano. I also learned that when the volcano erupts, sometimes something called a lahar. A lahar is when the volcano erupts when there is a ton of ice on top, so the lava melts the ice and it turns it into lava-y water and mud. All that weight pushes everything out of the way which sends all the trees, rocks, and rubble down with it. When that happens, it can spread all the way down to Seattle, which is about 60 miles away from Mount Rainier. Mount Rainier was pretty cool!

Checking out a waterfall on the way down Mt. Rainier