Summer on Crystal Mountain: Trail rides and sunset dining

CRYSTAL MOUNTAIN — It was a wonderful dinner at a table surrounded by old friends: Rainier, magnificent, domineering and more in-your-face than ever; Adams, a little distant, blushing like a shy schoolgirl as the evening progressed; and St. Helens, always a welcome presence though a mere shadow of her former self.

My wife and I were enjoying the Sunset Dinner at the top of the Rainier Express chairlift at Crystal Mountain ski area. We were 6,872 feet up and just a few paces outside the boundary of Mount Rainier National Park, with pretty much the best view of "our" mountain you can get without buying an airplane ticket. But no airline in these modern times will give you a dinner with white tablecloth, candlelight, good wine and plank-baked Alaska salmon to enjoy with the scenery.

We had ridden 15 minutes upward on two chairlifts to get to the Summit House restaurant, which skiers will know as the high lodge where they might grab a sandwich and cocoa during the snow season. On this crystal clear evening, with the entire Cascade Range outside our window, the mountains blushed pink and then purple as we sipped chardonnay and nibbled our salads.

Before dinner, we had taken in the view from the lodge's patio, surrounded by a few hardy alpine firs among the scree, and met departing diners from the evening's first seating. We heard only raves.

This rustic stone lodge was familiar territory to Walt and Jane Enterline of Seattle, who were posing for photos in front of the mountains with their family and visiting relatives. The couple have a vacation home in nearby Greenwater, and ski here frequently. But they'd never eaten here in summer.

"The transformation of this lodge to a white-linen restaurant is pretty impressive!" said Walt, who raved about the prime rib.

"I loved all the blues and grays in the mountains all around us, and Mount Rainier right there!" Jane said.

"And taking a ski lift to have dinner was very exciting!" added Lynn Enterline, Walt's sister visiting from Nashville, Tenn.

This was definitely an adventure in fine dining, and we're not just talking about the bold seasoning in the stuffed mushrooms.

Seeing is believing

"Unless you're a mountain climber, you don't get to see this!" marveled my wife, Barbara, as we joined others who paused during dinner to take their wine glasses out on the patio to watch the sun melt into a strand of magenta on the horizon.

Aaron Willis, our wine steward and the restaurant's assistant manager, told us, "You can describe this to people as many times as you want, but until they're up here, they can't understand. Rainier is spitting distance away. I keep getting table after table saying, 'We'll be back — with friends!' "

He called his ride to work "the best commute in the state."

Especially exciting was our "commute" home to our rented condo at Silver Skis Chalet, a few steps from Crystal's base lodge. Since we had come for the 8:30 p.m. dinner seating, it was dark as we rode the chairlift back down the hill. There were no lights to pierce the quiet blackness, save for the full-moon traversing the ridge to our south and stars winking overhead. Barbara, no fan of heights — or of darkness, for that matter — kept a death grip on the chairlift bar. The chattering of water occasionally told of snow-melt creeks 30 feet below us. Fir-scented air swirled upward.

Looking up to the stars, Barbara called out, "There's Cassiopeia!"

OK, she was enjoying the experience. Maybe we, too, would be back — with friends.

Hold your horses

The next morning, we ate breakfast on our condo balcony and watched as the sun lit the highest snow-dotted peaks. Swallows swooped and darted over a meadow below us. A tethered horse whinnied brightly whenever someone passed.

Just down the road, we had an appointment with some other horses, and the crew from Circle C Outfitters.

This is the second summer up here for Ken Christian, his wife, Laura, and their family, who bring horses from their Eatonville home to temporary corrals near the ski area and lead trail rides into the scenic ramparts.

"Years ago my uncle had a mining claim near here, and a cabin. That's how I got to know this area, starting in the 1970s," said Ken, 48, whose warm, rural drawl speaks of a life among animals and the outdoors.

He and his family helped us and other visitors saddle up, ready for a two-hour ride on an old gold-mining road up the hillside to Bullion Basin, named for its prospecting history.

"People ask, 'How pretty is this place we're riding to?' " Ken told my wife as he cinched up her stirrups. "Well, if it was an ugly place, I wouldn't go back to it!"

We headed up a dusty trail and were soon among alpine firs and hillsides festooned with blue lupine, accented by the occasional red columbine and orange Indian paintbrush.

Barbara rode a big gray horse named Edward, who seemed to be the "difficult" horse of our pack. (She was the only rider given a willow stick to use to keep her horse in line.) Barbara was frustrated to find that lupine is a favorite snack of horses, especially Edward. He seemed determined to spend more time snacking trailside than climbing.

But when the Christians' 3-year-old granddaughter, Kendra Hannahs — a little button who rode a big horse all by herself on our outing — leaned over and confided to my wife in a proud whisper, "I rode Edward last time," Barbara felt a new resolve; she was in charge after that.

A view worth the trip

Vistas opened up as the horses climbed. Across the valley was a beautiful ribbon waterfall. An area of flattened trees along the trail told of an old avalanche, said Sue Harte, one of our guides. She pointed out elk prints on the trail.

We glimpsed the top of Rainier over a ridge-top as we ascended to pretty Bullion Basin, where we tied our horses to hitching posts and walked over to plunge our arms deep into the icy water of a pristine alpine spring bubbling up through sand in the middle of the meadow.

The whisper of gold brought prospectors here in the early 20th century, Ken told us. But hope never turned to riches.

"My dad knew the guy who packed supplies in here for the miners, and he said his family made more money packing for them than the miners ever took outta here."

Before we remounted, Harte told us how wild this country can be, as seen on a recent evening ride to this basin. She pointed all over the basin as she spoke.

"There were elk on this hill, and two deer in that clearing and a bear up there on that hillside!"

Descending back to the ski basin, with its European-style lodge, chapel and chalets beneath a ring of rocky peaks and a bright blue sky, Ken called out, "It looks like the Swiss Alps!"

He was right. And, yes, we might just have to come back. With friends.

Brian J. Cantwell: 206-748-5724 or bcantwell@seattletimes.com