We started at Pinnacle trail with many other people shortly before 10am. It's only 1.5 miles to a saddle. Rainier was still in the clouds. I left my bag there, and asked a random lady to tell my hiking companions that I was going west to Plummer Peak. This is easy. The use trail is obvious, all the way. Great view, all around. Back to the saddle, continued east along a use trail. Clouds parted. Good view south to Goat Rocks, Adam, Hood, St Helens. Very green, dotted occasionally with flowers. Soon I caught up with one girl, the other two were still behind. At the foot of Castle, I saw a use trail going up. I left my pack at the trail junction, and headed up. It's more sketchy, and the real top of Castle is still a bit north. I could see a way to get down to a plateau with snow and melting pond - where we'll camp for the night.
Getting back on the increasingly faint rocky trail, continued east, now our group of 4 together. The trail goes down a bit too much for rounding the Castle. Had to scramble up. This is not difficult. Most flat dirt surface of this little plateau is under fast melting snow. I pitched my tent on semi-dirt-semi-rock surface. Hard to push the tent pegs all the way down. Blew my mattress to 3/4 full, for fear of it getting punctuated. Great view here. Mt Rainier is in your face, "across from the street", Reflection and Louise Lakes. We can hear and see cars below.
Had our late lunch (2pm) on a meadow east of our camp. At 3pm, I decided to find the pond shown on the map, while the others returned to the camp. I followed a use trail on a ridge going down. The walk is very pleasant. But the pond is quite ugly, shallow, its east side all mud, with clumps of dirty or dead plants. Some rocks here are of rusty red. The water, even though clear (snow melt), appears blackish in color, especially from afar.
No more trail. I walked up the meadowy slope further east, all the way to Foss Peak (unamed on my map). Fabulous view all around. Can see Snow and Bench Lake below and the snowy gully where people start the Tatoosh Traverse.
Back to camp at 5pm. Ate and waited for sunset. The Castle blocks most of the sunset. Had to walk a bit east to our lunch spot for a better sunset. Very colorful due to the clouds. A couple showed up around 9pm, poking around.Total about 10 miles today.
7/31, Sunday. Very cloudy at night, dark (one day to new moon, and no stars). Clouds lingered the better part of the morning. After breakfast, I packed up, and started up to the Castle. It was too cloudy, so no need to hurry. Soon the couple of last night showed up with helmet and harness. I came down, after seeing that my comrades had packed their tents. This is a photo Julie took of me standing in the middle of the spires. By then, half of the clouds were burned off.
We decided to take a "climbing route" down the plateau, where the fixed sling and blue ribbons were, instead of the long detour when we came. I got down first, left my pack, and came back up to help move the backpacks. See a photo of Jenny without her pack. It's steep, but had places to put hands and feet. However, with a heavy pack, this isn't easy.
Back as we came. Very pretty as clouds were lifting. I went to a rocky saddle just east of Pinnacle Peak, and tried to climb from there. There's a trail going down the north side, and a half-frozen tarn below with blue water. The obvious climbing route is close to the saddle at the end of Pinnacle Trail. 
Many people were having lunch at the flowering plateau just south of the Pinnacle saddle.Back to the car in front of Reflection Lake around 2pm. Very warm. Good that we went up in the clouds. A bathroom break, and a lunch break at the Base Camp of RMI. Only walked about 4 miles today.
