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Mount
Rainier NP
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Mount
Rainier National Park
Mount Rainier
Mt. Rainier, the highest of the
volcanoes in the Washington Cascade Mountains
and the centerpiece of Mount Rainier
National Park,
certainly dominates the skyline around western Washington. It is a relatively young
volcano, being over ten million years younger than the surrounding ranges.
What makes Mount Rainier
particularly unique, from a geographical perspective,
is the 36 miles of glaciers
covering the mountain.
 This
collection of ice is the largest remnant of the Ice Age to be found
on one mountain (a "single-peak glacier system") in the world. Glaciers
are formed from snow that does not melt from year to year. Instead it accumulates to
such depths that air is pressed out and the snow is compressed to ice. The ice
gradually moves down the mountainside under the force of gravity. The glacial valleys, sometimes gouging over
thousand feet into the sides of Rainier, visually accentuate the height of the mountain.
Drainage from the volcano manages to find its way into five major rivers. Although it is an object of admiration and even
affection amongst locals, Mount Rainier is considered the most dangerous volcano in the range.
In fact, Mount Rainier has the status of being one of sixteen volcanoes worldwide to be
designated a "Decade Volcano" in a United Nations program aimed at
better utilizing science and emergency management to reduce the severity of natural
disasters. An eruption could affect the large nearby
population, sending Rainier's huge volume of ice, snow and earth into the area.
Rainier also presents the hazard of avalanches and debris flows during its inactive
period. A mudflow caused by steam explosions about 5,700 years ago was one of the
largest known in the world. This eruption reduced the height of Rainier by
over 1,500 feet and sent a wall of mud 100 feet high, cascading like a river of wet cement
as far as the waters of Puget Sound. The towns of Auburn, Kent, Puyallup and Sumner
are built on top of this flow. About 30 earthquakes occur under Mount Rainier per
year, making it the most seismically active volcano in the Cascade Range after
Mount St. Helens. |
Go Northwest!
Bookstore
Best selection of books on the
Northwest.
Click here!
 Rainier
Panorama by Will Landon (Photographer)
March 1997. Photographed over a period of
twenty-four years, this portrait of Mount Rainier National Park is made in
sweeping panoramas of up to 360 degrees, close-ups and ultra-wide
panoramas of intimate scenes.
Order
now...
 The
Measure of a Mountain: Beauty and Terror on Mount Rainier
by Bruce Barcott October 1998,
Paperback or Hardcover,
278 pages, (autobiography), By turns witty and introspective, Barcott's
trip to the top of the glacier-clad peak is filled with history, scientific
observation. "Enjoyable, interesting, sometimes funny, sometimes sad,
sometimes reflective, but always engaging", Barcott's imparts to the reader
the important connection between Puget Sound residents and the mountain.
Order
now...
 Mountain
Fever: Historic Conquests of
Rainier (Columbia Classics) by Aubrey L. Haines, Ruth Kirk
October 1999,
Paperback, 278 pages, (non-fiction)
Order
now...
 The
Big Fact Book About Mount Rainier
by Bette E. Filley, Rachel French (Illustrator)
April 1996,
Paperback or Hardcover,
(non-fiction)
Well-researched, must-have reference for anyone who loves The Mountain.
Order
now...
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keep Go Northwest! online.
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