Washington state’s Puget Sound is a forested metropolis, braided with inlets and bays and ringed by steep, glacier-clad peaks. On the west skyline, the stately, wet Olympic Mountains grab moisture from the ocean clouds to nurture the temperate rain forest of Olympic National Park. To the east the queen-mother’s throne, nearly three-mile-high Mount Rainier, holds court on clear days in its namesake park.

The three kids—my 12-year-old son, Nate, and 10-year-old daughter, Alex, plus my 15-year-old nephew, Marco—are slightly less than enthusiastic about our plan to hike the Skyline Trail Loop above Paradise, on the south side of Mount Rainier National Park. My 76-year-old mom, Joanne, normally an eager hiker, shuffles along this morning, still recovering from a long, hard hike up Mount St. Helens two days ago.

Six climbers are feared dead from a fall of more than 3,000 feet at Mount Rainier National Park in Washington, where they were on a route that took them along one of the more technical approaches to the summit.

A boulder fall at Mount Rainier National Park has forced the temporary closure of the Westside Road, where a private vehicle was crushed by a rock and another boulder left a crater 8 feet in diameter in the road surface.