Mount Rainier Tipsoo Lake Wildflowers

Tipsoo Lake is an easy hike in Mount Rainier National Park that offers a great variety of wildflowers. It is a long drive to reach the trailhead, but you may have a better chance of finding parking here than you usually have in the more popular Paradise area. It is also a trailhead for the Natches Peak Loop trail, which is a more energetic hike.

The Flowers

Here’s a sample of a few of my favorites from this hike (click on the image to see a larger view).

This is a lake with a meadow, so you’ll see many wetland plants. One of the most interesting was the Western green false hellebore. This is a green version of a plant I see more often, California corn lily (California false hellebore), Veratrum californicum. The entire plant is several feet tall. Very striking!

One of the oddest flowers we came across was American saw-wort. Crowded heads of deep purple flowers. Here’s a closeup of an individual flower.

I’m fascinated by Sickletop lousewort. An unusual flower shape. We found just this one species at this location, up near the picnic tables. We found more species on our hike on the Skyline trail in the Paradise area the day after this hike.

Here’s a gallery of photos from this hike. For the best viewing experience, click on the lightbox image below. That opens a window that lets you easily scroll through larger versions of the photos. All photos are available for purchase  in a variety of formats.

All photos were taken with a Nikon Z8 camera with a Nikon Z 105mm macro lens (most landscape photos are taken with my iPhone).

The Hike

This is an easy, level hike around a small alpine lake that has an adjacent meadow. There are several intersecting pathways, our route was about 3/4 of a mile. You must stay on the trails. The elevation is about 5300′. This also is the trailhead for the Natches Peak Loop trail, which is a more energetic hike. However, hikers who took that trail noted that the best flowers (at this time) were at the lake.

At the time we hiked here there was a major wildfire to the east. Smoke was present but it wasn’t a big problem for us. Later that year the Park Service closed the road going north from here as the fire expanded.

One of the bonuses of having lunch at the picnic tables to the west side of the parking lot was that there was a network of paths that led through the hillside meadows. There were additional flowers up there, where it was a bit drier, and we saw a different selection of birds (including a group of sooty grouse that you see in the photo gallery above).

---

Move your mouse along the elevation graph to show the location on the map. The Refresh icon will re-center the map. The Expand icon will expand to full screen.

Directions

Tipsoo Lake is in Mount Rainier National Park. It is about an hour drive east from the Paradise parking area, which is the busiest spot in Mount Rainier. The road is fairly twisty, but in good shape. From Paradise you will head east on Stevens Canyon Road until it joins Highway 123. Go north (left), for 10 miles until you reach the junction with Highway 410. Go east (right) for about 3 miles. The lake is right at the road.

There is a small paved parking lot and a pit toilet (serviceable, but not in the best shape). There also are several pullouts for parking along the main road as it curves up above the lake. There are several picnic tables scattered about on one side of the parking lot that we enjoyed very much.

You can also approach from the northeast entrance and come south on Highway 410, from the Sunrise area. This entrance isn’t open for as long a season as the main entrance on the west side. Check the park website for road closure information.

As this is a National Park, there are entrance fees. See the park fee page for details. Prices seem to change all the time. The typical 7 day pass for a car, at the time I’m writing this, is $30.00 for a US citizen. But it can be complicated, so check in advance. In addition, reservations may be required. On our visit, the reservation system was suspended (which created great chaos).

Timing is Everything

We’ve visited Mount Rainier on two occasions, and both times the weather was wonderful! This visit was in the first week of August 2026. We were a little bit past the peak for wildflowers, but we were still very, very happy with what we found. There was no snow on the ground at Tipsoo Lake. We also visited the park in the last week of July in 2018, although we didn’t hike at Tipsoo Lake. That was a VERY different year. Still great weather, but there was much more snow on the ground. See my list of Mount Rainier Wildflower Hikes for more information.

On this visit, no rain (but there was rain the week prior), temperatures ranged from the low 50’s in the morning up to the low 70’s later in the day. Tipsoo Lake is fairly protected, so there wasn’t any significant wind.

Timing for flowers can be tricky, as the weather is different every year. Typically you are going to find early flowers in early to mid July. The season could last through August, depending on how much precipitation there is that year. One of the nice things about Mount Rainier is that there are wildflower hikes at a variety of elevations, so if you come in that July through August timeframe, you have options for SOME kind of wildflowers at SOME place in the park. Be flexible, make your plans for different hikes and choose when you get there.

With or without a park reservation system in place, Mount Rainier can be very crowded. If at all possible, visit on a weekday, which is what we did. On the weekend prior to our visit, the wait to get in could be as long as 3 hours! On our first day on this visit, we entered through the west Nisqually entrance at around 9:30 am. We had just about a 20 minute wait at the entrance. However, our plan was to hike at Paradise that day, but we couldn’t find a parking spot, so we drove another hour to Tipsoo Lake. That was busy, but parking wasn’t difficult.

---

Lodging and Food

If you want to stay at a hotel near to the park, plan FAR in advance. There is a short wildflower season, at a LOT of interest, so good spots fill up fast.

On this visit I didn’t plan too far ahead, so we ended up at a spot that was about an hour west of Paradise, in Eatonville. The Mill Village Motel in Eatonville was reasonably priced and clean. Not a bad place to stay, pretty basic. The main issues I had were that the local restaurants and markets didn’t open until 8:00 am, so it was hard to get breakfast (or a to-go lunch) to get up to the entrance early. We ended up buy packaged muffins and fruit from the local market the day before, so we had something in our room for an earlier start. The market was just down the street. The room had a microwave.

There were a few restaurants in Eatonville, here are the ones we tried:

• Puerto Vallarta Restaurant: Immediately next door to the hotel. A fairly typical Mexican restaurant with an extensive menu. We enjoyed it.
• Myles Pizza Depot: About 3 blocks away from the hotel. We enjoyed the pizza very much, the staff was very friendly. The music was a bit loud.

Mount Rainier Tipsoo Lake Wildflowers Listing

Here’s a list of the native plants that we found on this visit. To see photos of those I don’t show above, see my iNaturalist observations for August 3 2026 (which includes two hikes that day).

• Lyall’s Angelica, Angelica arguta
• Western Columbine, Aquilegia formosa
• Broadleaf Arnica, Arnica latifolia
• Pearly Everlasting, Anaphalis margaritacea
• American Bistort, Bistorta bistortoides
• Alaskan Bellflower, Campanula alaskana
• Mountain Paintbrush, Castilleja parviflora
• Fireweed, Chamaenerion angustifolium
• Rockslide Larkspur, Delphinium glareosum
• Cascade Aster, Doellingeria ledophylla
• Subalpine Fleabane, Erigeron glacialis
• Sharp-leaved Monkeyflower, Erythranthe decora
• Lewis’ Monkeyflower, Erythranthe lewisii
• Gray’s Lovage, Ligusticum grayi
• Partridgefoot, Luetkea pectinata
• Arctic Lupine, Lupinus arcticus
• Tall Bluebell, Mertensia paniculata
• Small-leaved Blinks, Montia parvifolia
• Sickletop Lousewort, Pedicularis racemosa
• Cascade Beardtongue, Penstemon serrulatus
• Slender Bog Orchid, Platanthera stricta
• White Pasqueflower, Pulsatilla occidentalis
• Roughfruit Raspberry, Rubus lasiococcus
• American Saw-Wort, Saussurea americana
• Arrowleaf Senecio, Senecio triangularis
• Narrow-leaved Bur-Reed, Sparganium angustifolium
• Mountain Spirea, Spiraea splendens
• Sitka Valerian, Valeriana sitchensis
• Western Green False Hellebore, Veratrum viride var. eschscholtzianum

We also found the following:

• Spotted Sandpiper, Actitis macularius
• Bombus sp.
• Sooty Grouse, Dendragapus fuliginosus
• Anna’s Blue, Plebejus anna