NPS Photo
Mount Rainier with Bench Lake in the foreground.
Mount Rainier is the largest single mountain system of glaciers in the contiguous 48 states with 26 major glaciers covering 35 square miles. These glaciers create most of the 470 mapped rivers and streams that occur within the park. Streams and rivers within Mount Rainier have been altered very little by humans and represent outstanding examples of pristine aquatic ecosystems of North America.
One of the least known but regionally most important components of these ecosystems are fish communities, which park staff have been inventorying since 1999. The present status of native fish populations in the park is not well understood due to construction of dams outside the park, and previous stocking activities. The Electron Dam on the Puyallup-Mowich drainage, Alder and LaGrande Dams on the Nisqually, and the Mud Mountain Dam on the White River have blocked passage of fish to these rivers and their upstream tributaries within the park. In some cases, spawning fish (Chinook salmon, Coho salmon, and Steelhead) are transported around the dams. The Carbon River is the only major drainage without man-made dams blocking fish passage. However, the present distribution of spawning and resident fish in the rivers within the park boundary is unknown. Fish are not native to any park lakes, though now at least 28 lakes have reproducing populations.
Official stocking of lakes and streams began about 1918, although private, informal stockings were made prior to this time. All of the larger park streams were repeatedly stocked with native and non-native species. Hatchery strains of rainbow, inland cutthroat trout and eastern brook trout were widely stocked throughout the park and may have hybridized or replaced native stocks within their historic ranges. Stocking was halted after 1972 consistent with new NPS management policies.
