Visit Mount Rainier National Park in Washington State between mid-July and early August and the wildflowers offer a bright, colorful feast for your eyes. The meadows at both Paradise and Sunrise will be carpeted with blue lupine and yellow glacier lilies. Patches of white avalanche lilies edge park roads, and subalpine trails at Sunrise are lined with pasqueflowers from early bloom to “bedhead” (seed pod) stage. Broad scarlet and magenta brushstrokes of paintbrush dot the trails and meadows, as well, and you might even spy the tiny, fragile foamflower on a hike into the lowland forest interior.
Hundreds of wildflower species inhabit all three life zones in the park (forest, subalpine, alpine). You don’t need a macro lens to photograph these bright beauties. A telephoto lens or telephoto setting on your SLR, point-and-shoot, or smartphone camera will capture the myriad colors.
Below are images of some of the many wildflowers you may enjoy seeing during your Mount Rainier visit.
Jeffrey's shooting star, Mount Rainier National Park / Rebecca Latson
Pink mountain heather, Mount Rainier National Park / Rebecca Latson
Lewis monkeyflower, Mount Rainier National Park / Rebecca Latson
Cliff penstemon, Mount Rainier National Park / Rebecca Latson
Small-flowered penstemon, Mount Rainier National Park / Rebecca Latson
Cusick's veronica (Cusick's speedwell), Mount Rainier National Park / Rebecca Latson
Harebell, Mount Rainier National Park / Rebecca Latson
Fireweed, Mount Rainier National Park / Rebecca Latson
Rosy spirea, Mount Rainier National Park / Rebecca Latson
Lupine, Mount Rainier National Park / Rebecca Latson
Foamflower, Mount Rainier National Park / Rebecca Latson
Magenta paintbrush, Mount Rainier National Park / Rebecca Latson
Scarlet paintbrush, Mount Rainier National Park / Rebecca Latson
Columbine, Mount Rainier National Park / Rebecca Latson
Columbine, Mount Rainier National Park / Rebecca Latson
Bistort, Mount Rainier National Park / Rebecca Latson
Pearly everlasting, Mount Rainier National Park / Rebecca Latson
Spreading phlox, Mount Rainier National Park / Rebecca Latson
Mountain daisy, Mount Rainier National Park / Rebecca Latson
Pasqueflower blooms, Mount Rainier National Park / Rebecca Latson
Pasqueflower seedhead stage, Mount Rainier National Park / Rebecca Latson
Cinquefoil, Mount Rainier National Park / Rebecca Latson
Glacier lilies, Mount Rainier National Park / Rebecca Latson
Avalanche lilies, Mount Rainier National Park / Rebecca Latson
Mount Rainier National Park’s webpage offers a wildflower guide of some of the more commonly-seen blooms, and there are plenty of wildflower books for both park and the Pacific Northwest which are small enough to carry in your pocket or pack for quick reference.
Remember to leave the flowers as you see them so they can seed the landscape and bloom again for future visitors to enjoy. Picking the wildflowers is prohibited at Mount Rainier and all other units of the National Park System.
