Mount Rainier National Park protects the highest peak in the Cascade Range, a 14,410-foot stratovolcano rising above forests and valleys in Washington. Created in 1899 as the nation’s fifth national park and the first carved from a national forest, it preserves glaciers, snowfields, waterfalls, subalpine meadows, and extensive old-growth forest. Native peoples long used this mountain landscape, known in Lushootseed as Tacoma, for seasonal hunting, gathering, and spiritual practices. Backed by conservationists, scientists, business leaders, and rail interests, the park became a major protected landscape, renowned for heavy snowfall, mountaineering, wilderness protection, and a dynamic environment still shaped by ice, weather, flooding, and growing visitation.