ASHFORD — By sunrise Sunday, two-thirds of the roughly 200 parking stalls in the upper parking lot at Paradise in Mount Rainier National Park were taken.
By 6:30 a.m., cars were turning, filling nearby overflow parking lots.
The latecomers arriving at 7 a.m. were left prowling the aisles in hopes of finding a spot just wide enough to squeeze in.
For much of the morning, the 14,410-foot mountain was shrouded in a blanket of clouds, with only brief moments of visibility before it disappeared once more. But like any other summer weekend, that didn’t stop the crowds.
Sam Van Otterloo found a parking spot after waking up at 5 a.m. to make the roughly one-hour drive from Packwood, an unincorporated community in east Lewis County. It was his second trip to Washington’s popular national park in two days.
This time Van Otterloo and his girlfriend quickly found parking and began hiking the Skyline Trail.
It was much different than what the pair experienced Saturday.
“We were in the line of cars at 1:30 yesterday, and we turned around, because we were like, ‘No,’ ” Van Otterloo, who is from California, said. “So it was like, ‘No, we’re not going to spend our time in this car line.’ ”
At times during the late morning and early afternoon hours, cars can wait for hours to get into the Nisqually entrance, located on the southwest corner of the mountain. As you approach the gate, signs serve as markers, estimating how long of a wait it will be before you enter. Upon entry, a sign with flashing lights warns visitors when the parking lot at Paradise is full.
“I was definitely looking at that and being like, ‘God, that’s a rough way to start and end a hike,’ ” Otterloo said. “If you have to go a mile or two down the road.”
Although visitation to Mount Rainier has slightly decreased since a record 2.5 million people visited the park in 2023, more than 500,000 additional visitors entered the park in 2025 than in 2016, according to data from the National Parks Service.
At the same time, national parks across the country are adjusting operations to account for deep staffing cuts. According to the National Parks Conservation Association, parks have lost nearly 25% of their permanent workforce, about 4,000 employees, since January 2025 to early retirements, layoffs and deferred resignations.
Earlier this year, the National Park Service announced it would not require reservations to enter the park at peak times this year, which was introduced in 2024 as a pilot program to control congestion in park. Instead, the agency said it would use “parking management strategies” to maximize capacity and control the crowd.
The park service also encouraged visitors to enter the park either before 7 a.m. or after 4 p.m., when parking is more available. Or consider visiting the park on a weekday rather than a weekend.
And yet the line of cars to just to enter the park have been long. The park service has frequently posted tips online about how to prepare for the wait. Bring extra food and water. Use the bathroom before leaving. Have an alternative plan if Paradise or Sunrise or another park location is full.
Visitors also should be prepared to wait even after they park. Just after 7 a.m. on Sunday, for example, the line to use the restroom at the Paradise Wilderness Information Center stretched out the door. It was a similar situation at the Henry M. Jackson Visitor Center in the afternoon.
“That was the most crowded it’s been, but at the same time, it’s not like we were waiting in line to see any of the viewpoints or anything like that,” Van Otterloo said. “It’s not like I felt like I had to wait for people on the trail. Like, there’s pretty regular people on the trail, but I wouldn’t call it silly crowded.”
While on his hike, Van Otterloo took photos of a “line of cars” along the street, which he later realized was the overflow parking for the cars unable to find a parking spot.
Located at the base of the mountain, Paradise features “easy,” “moderate” and “strenuous” hiking trails ranging from 1 to 5½ miles. For those who don’t hike, Paradise offers sweeping views of mountains, wildflowers and glaciers.
Once on the trail, Van Otterloo said the pit toilet near Panorama Point was “better than any in Olympic (national park).”
“We had such bad luck with bathrooms in Olympic Park,” he said. “There was either no toilet paper or they, just like, stink to high heaven, or a huge line to it.”
Van Otterloo, who had visited Olympic National Park earlier in the week, said the crowd there was “nothing like” what he saw at Mt. Rainier.
“There were certain sections of it that were crowded. Like definitely the trails right near the parking lots, so like Sol Duc Falls, Marymere Falls, those were pretty crowded,” Van Otterloo said. “Any sort of easy hike, like no elevation gain, trailheads right at the parking lot.”
Miles Prahl, who lives in the Minneapolis area, had visited both Olympic National Park and North Cascades National Park earlier in the week. While Prahl said Olympic National Park wasn’t too crowded when he visited, it was a different story when he visited North Cascades.
“It was all of the North Cascades, from East to West, it was very crowded,” Prahl said.
Mount Rainier is a special place for Prahl, who summited its peak about 40 years ago. It took him two days to climb, including an overnight stop at Camp Muir. The view from the top, he said, is “amazing.”
“You’ll see Mount Adams, St. Helens, you’ll see (Mount) Hood down in Oregon on a clear day,” Prahl said. “And so it’s a big view.”
This time, Prahl said he arrived at Paradise around 10:30 on Sunday morning. He had a bit of luck and found parking about a mile away from the visitors center.
“It was full all the way down and around,” Sharon Prahl, Miles’ spouse, said of the parking lot.
There were “a lot of people” on their hike to Myrtle Falls at Paradise, Sharon said, which at a mile round trip, is the shortest trail in the recreation area.
“It’s a lot of nonhikers, you know, so they’re not gonna go too far. So I think it’s always gonna be more crowded closer in where, you know, you got grandmas, you got little babies, you got all of the people up there who can’t go far,” Sharon said. “But it’s not that bad.”
While crowded, she said visitors were “polite” and took turns at lookouts.
“No horror stories or anything up there,” Sharon said.
The Prahls also offered tips for those who were planning to hit the trails this summer.
“We definitely come prepared,” Sharon said. “We bring more food than we need, bring more water than we need. We’ve got visors, sunscreen. You know, just so you’re not getting yourself in trouble, even on a short hike.”
