The Mountain

August 26-30, 2018

For most of us who live in the State of Washington, we have two favorite mountains … the incredibly impressive Mount Baker (which you saw some sneak peeks of during my trip to Rasar State Park) … and massive and majestic Mount Rainier.  Oh, they are gorgeous, beautiful, handsome, and such powerful  mountains!  Powerful?  Indeed.  They are both ACTIVE volcanoes.

Both mountains are in the Cascade Mountain Range on the west coast of the USA, not in the Rockies.  Even though Mount Rainier (taller than Mount Baker) is not in the Rocky Mountain Range, it is taller than any mountain in the Rocky Mountains, and taller than any mountain in the entire USA except for Denali (Mount McKinley) in Alaska.  Mount Rainier is a world-class climbing mountain, a volcano that they say is overdue for eruption, and is famous for many other things as well.

And now I’m going camping up on the side of Mount Rainier!  I’ll be in the forest and in a campground, not above the tree line … I’m not THAT adventurous.  But I will be on the side of the mountain and will see lots of things and learn lots of stuff while I’m there.  I’ll try to describe some of the interesting things about the mountain for you during this camping trip.  I won’t hit them all; there’s just too much.

Let’s hitch up the truck to the trailer and get on the road.

Everything is all hitched up (above) at the trailer’s storage yard near home, ready to roll down the road towards Cougar Rock Campground in Mount Rainier National Park.

While checking all of the connections, I was reminded of something I wanted to show you.  Many of you already know this but maybe someone doesn’t and maybe I could help prevent a disaster by sharing this.

When my brand new trailer was delivered to me three months ago in Sumas, WA, the Escape Trailer Industries employee who towed the trailer to Sumas from Canada told me to hook the “trailer brake emergency breakaway cable” (small silver wire in the photo below) into one of the large clamps at the end of the chains that attach to the truck (just like in the photo below).  That is a very bad idea!

Wrong way to attach trailer brake emergency breakaway cable.

For one thing, the spring loaded clip in the hook can, over time, cut the breakaway cable.  And that is exactly what happened to someone on another RV blog that I follow.

Also, that breakaway cable is there in case those chains come loose from the truck, and the hitch comes loose or the trailer tongue pops off the ball, etc … in case the trailer separates from the truck.  If that happens, then you surely want that cable to be attached TO THE TRUCK … NOT to the chains that are now no longer attached to the truck.  Attaching the breakaway cable anywhere except to the truck absolutely defeats that cable’s purpose.

If that emergency breakaway cable is properly attached to the truck, and the trailer separates from the truck, then the cable will be snapped out of its housing on the trailer and the trailer brakes will be applied immediately, stopping the trailer even though the trailer is no longer connected to the truck.  If that cable is NOT attached to the truck but is attached to the chains or any part thereof, then it will not pop out of its housing on the trailer and your trailer will continue to sail down the road all by itself possibly causing a serious accident in on-coming traffic, or it could careen over onto a sidewalk or smash into a parking lot or someone’s front yard where kids are playing, etc … or it could simply head for the ditch or ram into an electric/phone pole and start a fire.  None of that sounds like a good time to me.  That emergency breakaway cable must be attached to the truck … not to any part of the chains or hitch mechanism.

One of the best and easiest ways to properly connect the breakaway cable is shown in the photo below.  The cable in the photo below is red, not silver, but the idea is the same.  [I’ve done this on my trailer/truck but don’t have a photo of it yet, so this photo below will have to suffice for today’s show-and-tell.]

In the photo above, the breakaway red cable is connected via a clip to a structural component of the “receiver” which is, in turn, permanently and securely bolted (and possibly welded) to the frame of the truck.  Now, with this setup, even if the hitch pin comes out and the entire hitch assembly slides out and the chains pop out and the trailer disconnects from the truck, the breakaway cable will still be firmly attached to the truck, the other end of the breakaway cable will pop out of the housing on the trailer, the trailer’s brakes will be activated, and everything will come to a safe stop.

I hope never to look in my mirror and see my trailer loose, but I’ve heard from a few people on a few blogs (and a couple of people in person) that their chains have come loose or they didn’t get the trailer tongue properly and completely fitted onto the ball, etc, and got partway down the road before they discovered it.

And now let’s get on the road and go camping.

I hitched up safely and securely and pulled the trailer out from under the storage roof and out into the open where it’s easier to check the trailer lights, etc.  While checking the lights, I walked to the front of the truck and found Little Towhee had flown out the passenger window of the truck and planted herself (and her basket) on the hood of the truck.

She said she was now the hood ornament!  And she chirped and cheeped and said she was SO happy to be going camping again, and that she would show me the way!

 

So I started up the truck engine and moved forward very slowly … oh, she didn’t like that!  There was too much vibration and noise and the hood of the truck bounced too much.  She happily flew back in through the window and nestled right down onto the passenger seat.

And so off we went to Mount Rainier!  The drive to Cougar Rock Campground took about two hours, not long.  It had been a cloudy morning, but the sun came out while we were driving.  Just after crossing onto Mount Rainier National Park land, we crossed a bridge (below) and got our first quick peek of Mount Rainier.  Oh boy, oh boy!

 

With no traffic behind me, I stopped in the middle of the bridge for a quick close-up.

At Longmire, I pulled into the parking lot and took the photos above and below.  I’ll tell you more about Longmire in another blog post coming soon.

That is one imposing mountain!

Further up the road, I pulled over for this view of the mountain between evergreen trees.

 

And eventually I made it to Cougar Rock Campground and pulled into my campsite for my stay here … #E003.

 

 

You don’t see any other cars or trucks or trailers or tents around do you?  There weren’t any!  At most, I had one “neighbor” each night, although, even when there was a neighbor, they weren’t right next to me.

The altitude here is about 3,200 feet so it is “montane” forest country.  It’s not too much further up the road from here to sub-alpine forests and then the tree line itself.  It was cold at night.  But I had propane heat while I was awake and I had several layers of blankets while asleep, so I was toasty warm (the propane is off when I’m asleep).  In the morning, it was a might nippy!  Sure wish I could teach Little Towhee how to turn that propane heater on!