Please be respectful of the landscaping, and watch your step on the slope below the cache, especially when conditions are icy.
At long last, the little town of Elbe, Washington has its own rest area along the road to Mount Rainier!
Located at the approximate distance between Seattle and a full bladder, this crossroads has always been a popular spot for travelers to stop and look for a bathroom. Along the quarter mile stretch of Highway 7 between the town borders are a gas station, a hardware store, a general store, a tavern, an espresso stand, a post office, a fire station, two tiny (and I mean tiny) churches, an even tinier restaurant, and another restaurant and motel built into a set of old railroad cars. A historic steam train makes runs up the old rail lines to the mountain town of Mineral during the summer and school holidays. All of them welcome visitors, but none are set up for the volume of need present on a summer day, when cars and campers and buses stream past in an endless flow of vehicles on their way to the Mountain.
Thanks to a grant from the National Scenic Byways program, that's now changed! An old Civilian Conservation Corps bunkhouse and garage from the 1930s has been renovated into a simple but functional rest stop with bathrooms and information. Large doors on the front can slide shut in the winter and open in the summer. A few picnic tables are available for enjoying lunch. What more could it need, except a geocache?
Of course, Elbe is much more than just a rest stop. It also has an interesting history to explore, so if you have a few minutes, spend them strolling around the tiny community and looking at some of the old structures. In its heyday, Elbe (which, by the way, rhymes with "well be," two syllables, not one) was home to a lumber mill, located along the Nisqually River across the road from the rest stop. The rail lines carried logging traffic and also tourists traveling between Tacoma and Ashford, where they would then catch stages and shuttles up to the National Park. The old scale shack for the logging operation is now a miniscule burger joint, and the tracks now carry steam trains on scenic trips through the forest departing from the station down the road. The Elbe Lutheran Church is one of the smallest in existence and still offers Sunday services for local residents and visitors.
Elbe, Washington: it's a great place to go!