1917 Mount Rainier Lodge at 5,400 Feet
98368 Paradise-Longmire Rd, Ashford, WA 98304
Research updated May 2026
Age
All Ages
Cost
$$$
Room rates vary; the Inn operates seasonally roughly mid-May through late September. Park entry fee separate.
Access
Wheelchair OK
Paved access; historic Annex has stairs. Elevation 5,400 feet.
Equipment
Photos OK
Est. 1917 · National Historic Landmark · National Register of Historic Places · National Park Service Rustic Architecture
When Mount Rainier National Park was established in 1899, the federal government had no infrastructure to house visitors. The Rainier National Park Company, a private concessionaire, was chartered to remedy that. Construction on Paradise Inn began in 1916 in a steep alpine meadow at 5,400 feet elevation, using locally felled Alaska yellow cedar that had been killed and weathered to silver-gray by a 1885 forest fire. That distinctive driftwood-colored timber gives the Inn's interior its character today.
The Inn opened on July 1, 1917. Tacoma architect Frederick Heath designed a structure intended to disappear into its surroundings, the foundational principle of what would become known as 'parkitecture.' A 1920 Annex added 100 guest rooms to the main building. German carpenter Hans Fraehnke, working alone over the winter of 1919, hand-built the Inn's signature interior fixtures from cedar planks: the 14-foot grandfather clock, the throne-like chair used by the U.S. Postmaster General, and the glass-and-cedar parchment lamps that still illuminate the Great Hall.
The Mount Rainier area has a difficult relationship with mortality. The National Park Service records over 400 deaths within the park's borders since its creation, the result of avalanches, climbing accidents, exposure, plane crashes, and a small number of murders and suicides. The Inn has historically served as the staging ground for summit attempts via the Disappointment Cleaver and Ingraham Direct routes.
The building was designated a National Historic Landmark in 1987 and underwent a comprehensive seismic and structural retrofit completed in 2019, a $25 million project that addressed decades of snow-load damage and brought the Inn into modern code while preserving Heath's original character. The Inn operates seasonally, generally opening in mid-May after the Paradise road clears of snow and closing in late September.
Sources
The Paradise Inn does not have a famous ghost. It has a quieter, less narrative kind of activity, the sort that staff mention only when asked directly. Preseason workers, arriving in May to ready the Inn for opening, describe consistent experiences in the Annex: the sound of furniture being moved on the floor above when no one is there, footsteps in empty corridors, and the sensation of being watched while working alone in guest rooms.
The wind at 5,400 feet does odd things. It funnels through the Inn's dormer windows in voices that suggest conversation. It pushes the building's cedar joints into rhythmic settling sounds. Staff who have worked multiple seasons learn to distinguish wind from other sounds.
Local interpretation of the Inn's atmosphere often invokes Mount Rainier itself rather than any specific resident haunting. The mountain has claimed climbers since recreational mountaineering began in the late 19th century. Some of those climbers stayed at the Inn the night before their summit attempts; some did not return. The connection is correlative, not causal, but it shapes how visitors and staff describe what they experience. The Inn is, in this telling, less the haunted location than the threshold.
Reports remain modest. There is no documented apparition with a name, no specific room claimed by a specific presence. The Paradise Inn's paranormal reputation is built on accumulated atmosphere rather than incident: a place where the line between weather and witness is unusually permeable, and where staff working alone in the building before season tend to remember the experience.
Book one of 121 guest rooms in the 1917 cedar-shake lodge or its 1920 Annex. Rooms have no televisions, telephones, or internet, an intentional design choice that lets the building's groan and creak under wind become the soundtrack of an evening at 5,400 feet. Staff report furniture being moved and footsteps in the Annex hallways during preseason.
The Inn's Great Hall, with its 50-foot-high ceiling, exposed Alaskan cedar timbers, and stone fireplaces, is open to the public during operating season. The hand-built grandfather clock, parchment lamps, and rustic furniture were crafted by carpenter Hans Fraehnke in 1919.
Every HauntBound history is researched from documented sources. We clearly separate verified historical fact from paranormal folklore.
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