I’ve said it before, but I’ll say it again: “It was paradise at Paradise. The best day there ever!”

Because I live here again, I can decide to go to Mt. Rainier the morning I’m thinking about the possibility. I check the forecast the night before, and the webcams the morning of before I make a final decision. (I also sort of know: if there’s fog in my valley, with a promise of clearing, it most likely will be paradise at Paradise.) Hence, every time I go is the best day there ever.

I arrived just before 10. Gorgeous, with drifts of fog hanging in valley crannies under blue skies from Morton on up. Forty-five minutes from the gate—where I flashed my $10 Senior Access Lifetime Pass and sailed through ($20 per visit for less fortunate youngers)—I entered Paradise.

I vowed, this time, to take fewer pictures. “Leave the camera in the backpack,” I told myself. “Just enjoy looking and breathing the ambrosious (sure, it’s a word; why not?) alpine air.”

“How did that work out for you?” you might be asking. Well, not that well. I took 182. In five hours.

I knew I wouldn’t be able to resist, so I made a deal with myself: only photos of fluid scenes. If I “need” a static one, I can comb the 1000s of them around the house: in my computer, my photo albums, my mother’s photo albums, my father’s slides, the boxes of photos, the envelopes, the unsorted stacks. There are pictures of Mt. Rainier and the Tatoosh range in all seasons, in all weather, in all decades. (Here’s a classic. That’s me stylin’ in the kerchief.)

So, that didn’t work so well either.

“But,” I hear you saying, “you don’t have any from THIS day.” True. But really? The differences can’t be seen in a photograph. It’s not like the mountain has erupted. (I pray I’m gone when that happens. It will break my heart.) Water is fluid. This is a legitimate shot. There are many fewer streams this year.

I’ve walked the High Skyline trail three times in the four summers I’ve been back here. I had never done the whole loop before, at least that I remember. It’s a little kick ass, but the view is distracting. And the trekking poles make such a difference. (But still, I am sore.) I out-paced just one couple in the 4.5 miles (had to take the Golden Gate shortcut, knocking off a mile, to get home for dinner duty). I didn’t count how many parties passed me, because who cares? As three guys from Lon Gisland said, “It’s not a race.” (Two of the passers were young women with strapped on skis. I wish I had asked where the heck they were going.)

The Goddess Cairn Field (that’s my secret name for it) at the apex, above Panorama Point—which is where most hikers turn around (more’s the pity, the other side is best)—was not filled with cairns like it was last time I was there in autumn. There were a few, but in 2012 there were hundreds. This is my 2015 offering.

Below is my 2012 creation. (You can read about that visit here.)

There was no smoke obscuring the view. With Her Majesty to my back (she is not actually in the Cascade Range; she’s her own thing), I could see Adams, Hood, and St. Helens. Chippy looked with me.

In the uncountable number of times I’ve been to Paradise in my life, I’ve never seen one of these snowy creatures. I zoomed in, though it was not too far from the trail. I hope it was just resting. Can a mountain goat break a leg? Seems unlikely, though they give it every opportunity.

I was on the lookout for a marmot. Finally saw just one, dashing this way and that, being adorable, and getting fat in preparation for the Big Sleep.

Her Majesty disappeared into a cloud as I finished my hike; but frankly, this time of year, in her nakedness, she is not the main attraction. Especially this year. A bad wardrobe year, you could say, after a mild winter and and a long, hot, very dry summer.

This was the only snowfield near the trail. Very unusual. Crossing it is a shortcut from or to Panorama Point from the east and west sides of the loop, cutting off the Goddess Cairn Field. (Several years ago—meaning to do the loop—I had to turn back; not realizing there was an up and over, and not about to go across. I also went counter clockwise that year, which I do not recommend. Much easier to go clockwise.)

The trail (or rather the trail it interrupts) is closed this year. I can’t for the life of me understand why anyone would cross it without crampons and ski poles. But, anyway, it’s usually much, much bigger than this. As in, if you lost your balance you would take a quick trip nearly all the way to the Inn. Now one would just take a precipitous fall to a quick death.

No, it’s not the mountain the makes me gaga in the autumn. The eye-popper is the crimson and gold foliage.

Once home, I pared my 182 photos down to less than 40. Back in the day of film and developing, one would have only taken one or two rolls, and hoped they chose well and held steady. It’s too easy now.

Is there a 12-step program for people with digital cameras? See you next year, beautiful one.