Hello, First time poster. Thanks in advance. I have signed up to climb Rainier starting June 15th. I currently live in East Texas and am looking for a driving route to Mt. Rainier. I plan on leaving Texas around May 17. What I am specifically looking for are places I can stop to help prepare me for the altitude and hopefully bag a couple more summits on the way. If you have any recommendations of some great places to hike/summit that are not covered in snow... then please let me know. I know I posted in the Colorado forum but I am open to other states. Cheers

What I am specifically looking for are places I can stop to help prepare me for the altitude and hopefully bag a couple more summits on the way. If you have any recommendations of some great places to hike/summit that are not covered in snow...

Unless you want to take a detour to New Mexico and Arizona (they had a low snow year), it really isn't a reasonable expectation to have high altitude and no snow in May. In an average snow year, even in Arizona and New Mexico the higher elevations would have snow in May. This year has been very dry however, so Arizona and New Mexico are a possibility.

Well looks like that detour Scott mentions only adds 3-5 hours for you perhaps... which isn't a big deal if you have a month. Then there are the peaks in Southern California or Death Valley which would be your mostly likely chances of limiting snow... still not that much of a detour. And could finish acclimating by climbing Shasta on the final leg of the drive... but that will be totally snow covered.

Guadalupe Peak in Texas is sortof near this route.

Thank you both for the suggestions. I'm going to spend a lot of time in the New Mexico and Arizona. Guadalupe Peak will be a great first start. I'll move to a different board and post questions after I have had a chance to research this a little bit