Washington Cascades - Washington, Oregon and the Pacific Northwest - page 339

Nisqually Entrance
This southwestern corner of Mt Rainier National Park is its most developed (and hence
most visited) corner. Here you'll find the park's only lodging, the only year-round road
and the gateway settlements of Ashford and Copper Creek that offer plenty of useful
park-related facilities and lodging.
Hwy 706 enters the park about an hour and a half's drive southeast of Seattle, just past
Ashford and adjacent to the Nisqually River. After the entry tollbooth, a well-paved road
continues east, offering the first good views of Mt Rainier - weather permitting - a few
miles further on at Kautz Creek.
At the 7-mile mark you'll pass Longmire, the park's first orientation point, replete
with lodging, food and hiking trailheads. From here the road climbs steeply for 12 miles,
passing numerous hairpin turns and viewpoints until it emerges at the elevated alpine
meadows of Paradise, where you'll find the area's biggest and best information cen-
ter-museum.
SOUTHERN CASCADES: UFO HOT SPOT
In 1947 search-and-rescue pilot Kenneth Arnold spotted nine cylindrical disks that
he timed flying between Mt Rainier and Mt Adams in 102 seconds - which would
make their speed twice that of sound and significantly faster than any known air-
craft. That same day there were numerous similar reports across Washington and
Oregon. Although the US Air Force deemed these mysterious sightings a mirage,
Arnold's descriptions of the pan-shaped objects coined the phrase 'flying saucer.'
Over on the east side of Mt Adams, the Yakima people have reported seeing
white lights moving low in the sky for over a hundred years. Meanwhile, James Gilli-
land, author of several UFO books and owner of the website Enlightened Contact
with Extraterrestrial Intelligence (ECETI; www.eceti.org ) runs the Satvva Sanctuary in
Trout Lake, where you can apply for UFO-viewing privileges from the ranch. Pretty
much everyone who goes sees something; naysayers have their explanations, while
believers have very different ones.
Sights
Longmire Hiker Information Center VISITOR CENTER
( 360-569-2211, ext 3317; summer) Worth a stop to stretch your legs or gain an
early glimpse of Rainier's mossy old-growth forest, Longmire was the brainchild of a