Our last day was so sad! We decided we needed the rest, so we gave ourselves a later wake-up time and planned to check out a coffee shop in Packwood before leaving.

I’m really glad we did because it was super cute and the coffee was really good! This was the first morning I had time to sit and enjoy a cup of coffee the whole trip, so that was a nice treat. We also ended up picking up a few more souvenirs and left super full after breakfast burritos and savory scones.

We got back to the cabin and started throwing all of our stuff into random bags. We decided we would just get out of the cabin and worry about doing the real packing once we got to the hotel in Seattle.

We also made a pretty dumb decision at this point. We decided we were, in fact, going to do Naches Peak. The fear of missing out was just too great. And then we made an even stupider decision and decided to stop by Silver Falls Lookout first.

On the way, we stopped for the obligatory national park sign selfie! Luckily for us, another group was stopped there too, so they were able to get a group photo of all of us.

When we arrived at the Silver Falls trail, we were immediately hit with a downhill climb into the basin toward the waterfall. This time, we weren’t messing around, and had brought our trekking poles with us, so I took it slow and tried my best not to bend my leg too much as I descended. The viewpoint was only about 0.4 miles down so it wasn’t too much suffering. 

The waterfall was amazing, and I’m really glad we stopped here. There was a lookout across the bridge, and then you could walk a little farther and climb down some rocks to get to the real viewpoint.

Jordan ran back over to the other side so we could show just how big the waterfall was in comparison to a person. It was awesome.

Once we got back to the car, we continued on our way toward Naches Peak. We didn’t really have any cell service unless we were in the town of Packwood or occasionally at our Airbnb, so I had to navigate using the paper map from the visitor center and road signs. So old school haha.

I got us to Naches with no problems, and we even managed to get a parking spot despite being pretty late! We ate our last peach in the parking lot.

We started the trail around 12:15 PM. We weren’t in a huge rush because the rental car wasn’t due back in Seattle until around 9:00 PM, and we really didn’t want to miss out on this trail, especially because people had been posting review photos of bears hanging out pretty close to the trail.

The trail makes a loop around Naches Peak, and if you go clockwise, once you reach the other side of the peak, you get an amazing view of Mount Rainier. The first part of the hike followed Tipsoo Lake, and it was gorgeous. There was a bird in the water, although I couldn’t tell what kind it was. The trail also followed part of the Pacific Crest Trail, which was pretty cool. I feel like that’s basically the Appalachian Trail of the West.

While we weren’t in a rush to get back to Seattle, we were hungry, so we tried to keep a decent pace.

At one of the overlooks, we stopped to eat the apples we had brought with us from the market. These were Honeyzee apples, and apparently you can only get them in this area. They were sweet like Honeycrisp apples, and I can personally attest that they were delicious. It was a nice little break before continuing on.

At this point, we started being able to see Mount Rainier. Jordan said this was probably his favorite view of the mountain, and I could definitely see why. It was gorgeous, especially when we passed a lake and could see Mount Rainier popping up behind it.

Around 1:30 PM, we passed a hiker coming from the opposite direction, and he warned us that there was a bear up ahead. Instead of being worried, Caroline and I immediately asked, “WHERE?!” because we were so excited! We picked up the pace, but unfortunately, when we got to the spot where everyone had stopped, someone told us that the bear had just passed over a hill in the distance. We were so bummed. We waited around for a little while hoping it would come back into view, but it never did, so eventually we decided to move on.

The downhill section eventually hit, and our knees started hurting a little, but honestly, it was worth the pain. I think we would have been sad if we had skipped this hike. Jordan summed it up perfectly when he said, “Pain is temporary, but hiking stats are forever.” With Naches Peak officially under our belt, we headed over to Crystal Mountain for some much-needed lunch.

Caroline had asked earlier if they closed for lunch, but we had no way of looking it up, so we just continued on and hoped for the best. When we arrived around 3:00 PM, there was a sign at the gondola ticket booth saying the last call for seating was at 1:30 PM. We were a little disappointed, because we were excited for the gondola ride up, but luckily there were a few other food options to choose from. There was the Snorting Elk, which was a sit-down restaurant at the Alpine Inn, or Brew 62 Cafe, which was more of a grab-and-go sandwich shop. We ended up choosing Brew 62 because it was already such a late lunch and we didn’t want to spend too much time there.

This ended up being a really solid choice! The sandwiches were really good, and Jordan and I split the elk chili, which was super delicious. 

On our way back to Seattle, we could actually see Mount Rainier! That really showed us just how much the wildfire smoke had been obscuring our views. On our way out to the park, we hadn’t been able to see the mountain at all, and now we could see it from the road.

We got back to the hotel near the airport, and it was a lot cooler than we had initially thought. Jordan had picked this location because it was close to the airport and had a 24/7 shuttle to and from the airport. When we had arrived Wednesday night it was dark, so we didn’t really notice the view. This time, though, we realized the view from the window was actually really cool! We could see the airport and the actual gates with planes sitting at them.

I feel like it would have been fun to sit there and watch the planes if we had more time, but unfortunately, we had to start what we had officially coined “The Great Pack.” After packing for what felt like forever, we walked across the parking lot to a restaurant we had noticed the first night we were there. It was actually super highly rated, and we had just happened to stumble upon it.

It was called Sharp’s, and they even had some of the house-made cheese from Beecher’s that we had tried at Pike Place Market! Their menu looked amazing, and they had sourdough pasta that they make from scratch. The wait to be seated was 30 minutes, so we placed an online order and ate it in the hotel lounge. Caroline, Jordan, and I settled on the pulled brisket mac and cheese, while Tyson got the buffalo chicken mac and cheese. Jordan and I also split the savory chicken and wild rice stew. Everything hit the spot!!

After dinner ended up being so amazing, we were actually really thankful that we didn’t get to eat at Crystal Mountain. I think if we had gone up in the gondola, we would have eaten lunch so late that we wouldn’t have been hungry for dinner, and then we would have missed out on Sharp’s. So, somehow, everything worked out perfectly.

Unfortunately, our departing flight was at 5:00 AM, so we had to schedule the hotel shuttle for 3:20 AM, which was a little miserable.

And then our connecting flight had been pushed back by three hours, leaving us with a super long layover in Dallas. At least we found a really nice lunch spot and had probably the best airport food we’ve ever had at Pappadeaux Seafood Kitchen. We ordered four plates of the spicy seared snapper with shrimp, lump crab, and lemon butter sauce, along with honey-roasted carrots and pistachios.

It was so, so, so good.  And we had the best crab cake appetizer we’ve ever had.

Looking back, this trip ended up being super fluid because of the ever-changing natural disasters and our lack of WiFi to check whether places were open or what time they closed. Pretty much nothing went exactly according to our original plan. But I think we ended up making the best of the situation. It didn’t really matter that we didn’t end up doing exactly what we had planned because we had an absolute blast anyway.

If anything, it just gives us an excuse to come back and do all the things we missed, plus more! Washington State was amazing, and we will definitely be back.

All-in-all, we ended up hiking 30.7 miles and 9,155 elevation gain over the entire trip. This is the biggest hiking trip we’ve ever done, let’s see what Jordan can plan for us next time to top it!