Crystal Mountain

Washington state has myriad destinations as varied as its topography. Its been only a year here for us and we are yet to visit many places and explore the Northwest . With mom visiting, we wanted to take her in and around Washington state and we started off with the mountain beauty of Washington, Mount Rainier. We heard a lot about Crystal Mountain and the view it offers of Mount Rainier. This time it was just a site-seeing fun trip on a pleasant summer day. Hoping to go on a hike some day though. However, for now, here is our summer experience, on this first day of the Autumn Season of 2016!!! #ThrowbackThursday 🙂 Happy fall season!!

Crystal Mountains is actually a privately owned skiing resort, which obviously is a heaven in winter. However for our summer visit, we were totally excited about the Gondola ride. The ride is not very expensive ($20/adult) and it takes about 10 minutes from the Gondola station to the top of the summit.  The view on the way to the top was beautiful with long trees and little streams!!!

The summit of the crystal mountains has an unobstructed and breath-taking view of Mount Rainier and the Cascade Range.  The moment we stepped out of the Gondola, I could not believe my eyes looking at the beauty of Mount Rainier. We always saw an illusive piece of Mount Rainier taunting us from a distance whenever we drove past a freeway, to see it up so close is totally another experience. Oh! I am just falling short of words describing this natural beauty!!!

Once you get to the top of the summit, you cannot miss enjoying these comfortable relaxing chairs at a perfect spot to stare and enjoy the beauty forever. Isn’t this amazing!!! Just got reminded of this picture from one of the recent Hindi movie. Can’t imagine taking a picture from the other side though :-p

There is also a restaurant at the top of the summit. It could totally be a dine with a view. However we have not tried that. Recently we realised that day outings are lot more fun when you carry your own food 🙂 Like a picnic!!! And when you have outdoor tables like these in the resort… its even more fun (and inexpensive)!!

For all the yoga lovers out there, you should really try the Mountain Yoga 🙂 Doesn’t that sound interesting. Of course got to wait till next summer though!

For now, if you are interested in the winter activities, here is where you got to check. Unfortunately, the Gondola ride is closed for this season and will be opened soon for the skii season. So, before you head out for this, do check this page.

Once we were done at the Crystal Mountains and seeing Mount Rainier that close, we could not resist going more closer to it. So we decided to go to the Mount Rainier National Park which is just 35 minutes from Crystal Mountain resort. More about Mount Rainier National Park in my next post. But before I sign off, here is another picture of Mount Rainier from the Crystal Mountain Summit.

-Signing off