Departed after work on a Friday afternoon, headed south to the Gifford Pinchot National Forest, looking for a place to camp for the night. It had been a few years since we last spent the night in the GPNF, but we remembered there were plenty of dispersed campsites to be found.
After some driving and looking, we pulled down a small two track that looked a bit promising. Went down the road about 1/4 mile and found an awesome view!
At the top of the canyon was a large cirque that stretched all the way around. Since there were no other trails or roads in the canyon, we very much had the entire canyon to ourselves.
As the sun went down, we were in for a show. The sky was painted with shades of blue, yellow, orange and red, giving a beautiful background to silhouette Mount Rainier. The surrounding mountains in our canyon for the night did a great job framing the view from here.
The views of the mountains in the morning were equally impressive as the evening. The sunrise on Stonewall Ridge across the valley was great to watch as the sunlight marched down the mountain.
We rose early in the morning, struck camp, and got moving down the road, ready to see what we would find in the GPNF that day. Checkout our youtube video of this trip on the Gravel Bound Youtube Channel to see more!
What a trip! K