Skyline Trail and Fourth Crossing Loop

The Trail
This easy trail is about 2.2 miles long (round trip) with about a 405 foot elevation change. This trail starts at the Paradise Visitor Center, heads uphill to Myrtle Falls, heads along the side of Mount Rainer, goes back down on the Fourth Crossing Trail, and then follows the one way scenic drive back down to the Visitor Center.

Topographical Map

Graph of Elevation

Trail in Google Earth

The first part of this trail is paved and generally crowded as it goes up to the 72 foot high Myrtle Falls. This waterfall is about a half mile up the trail. A steep path goes down to a nice viewpoint of the falls, and the main trail continues up and over a bridge above the falls.

Myrtle Falls

Looking down at Myrtle Falls from the bridge

 

The trail starts to descend after Myrtle Falls and quickly becomes less crowded.  There are some terrific views of the Tatoosh Range from along the trail.

Nice view of the Tatoosh Range

Peaks from left to right: The Castle, Pinnacle Peak, Plummer Peak

About 0.9 miles from the trailhead, the trail crosses a creek. There isn't a bridge here, and there aren't well placed stepping stones either. That was apparently enough to deter most other hikers while we were there; we didn't see anyone else after crossing until we reached the road.

Creek across the trail

0.2 miles later (1.1 miles from the Visitor Center) the Skyline Trail intersects with the Fourth Crossing Trail. We turned down this trail and followed it down to the road below. This 0.3 mile section of trail follows another creek to the road. It was covered with snow in places and quite muddy in many other spots, but it was also incredibly beautiful! There were little rapids and waterfalls along the creek all the way down.

The walk along the road back to the Visitor Center was about 0.8 mile long, and it also offered us beautiful views and waterfalls along the way.

Directions
This trail is located in Mount Rainier National Park in the Paradise Area. To get there from the west side of the park, take WA-107 to the Paradise Area. If you are coming from the east side, take US-12 to WA-123, or take WA-410 into the park.