Adventuring in Paradise

Visitors to Mount Rainier National Park use park facilities and relax in a variety of ways. In addition to our collections highlighting the park's administrative history, we hold many examples of recreation throughout park history. Over the past 100 years, hikers, skiiers, climbers - adventurers of all sorts - have played and worked in the mountain's shadow.

Seeing it all for the 100^th time, Walt knew he could never have enough of it. The rush of snow beneath your skis, the sing of the air ... that was only the beginning. The rest was something you felt deep within, and he was glad this mountain, conquered by roads as far up as the Inn, climbed, explored, charted, was still, relatively speaking, untouched. A national park, it stood as it had for thousands of years; it was not to be despoiled, it belonged to him and to everybody. All of it." --Arthur D. Stapp, Escape on Skis (a novel of Mt. Rainier), 1949.