Biking Rainier: Paradise to Longmire

Mt. Rainier is a training ground for many things but the biking is sometimes overlooked, except for the annual RAMROD event (Ride Around Mt. Rainier in One Day). I like to sometimes bike from Longmire to Paradise, a 2600 foot climb, perhaps hike to Camp Muir (at 10,100'), and be rewarded at the end of a hard day by the wonderful downhill bike from Paradise to Longmire. This is best done early or late in the day during the summer, or on an off time like this video (mid week Feb 26) to mitigate traffic problems. In the winter the gate to Paradise is opened at 9:00 AM so all the traffic is uphill. Taking advantage of sparse downhill traffic at around noon, I used 3 cameras mounted Left (Contour Roam2), Center (GoPro Hero2), and Right (GoPro Hero3 Black Edition) to capture this entire 11 mile journey. I use a mountain bike to keep speed reasonable and the fatter tires cope with rough roads, cracks or detritus easier than my skinny tire road bike. Shot in 960 Tall on each camera.

Biking Rainier: Ipsut Creek Road

The Ipsut Creek Road was once driveable its entire 5 miles, with the Ipsut Creek campground a drive in akin to Cougar Rock or Ohanapecosh. After two major flooding events the road has been converted to trail status, open to hiking and biking. This video was recorded on April 29, 2012. As of this writing (June, 2016) the trail has suffered more damage and some parts will be more difficult to transit on bike.

The 5 mile road from Mt. Rainier National Park's Carbon River entrance to the Ipsut Creek campground is forever closed to vehicular traffic but remains open as a bike/hike trail. Biking this trail is the fastest way to do the 17 mile round trip to the Carbon Glacier, plus the easy grade makes for a very pleasant ride. This tour shows all the different parts of the trail in a descent ride, edited for time by cutting out some of the cruising sections where the prior road is still in good shape. This was filmed on April 29, 2012. Filmed with a Contour Plus at 60 FPS mounted to the frame.

5 years later with mother nature keeping things in flux, this update (filmed on May 26, 2017) shows the entire trail with no time editing......23 minutes to cover the entire 5 miles.

This short video highlights some of the biking opportunities at Mt. Rainier National Park.