Route 706 is the only road through Ashford, connecting the town to the rest of western Washington via Route 7 from Tacoma. The highway continues into Mount Rainier National Park, leading to Longmire, Paradise, and the high country that draws millions of visitors each year. This is the most popular entrance to the park, and Ashford catches all the traffic - summer weekends see a steady procession of cars, RVs, and tour buses rolling through. The town has learned to make the most of its position: roadside services for every need, from espresso to backcountry permits, from tire repair to mountaineering equipment.

Life in Ashford follows the mountain's schedule. Summer brings the crowds, the climbers, the hikers streaming toward Paradise and Camp Muir and the summit routes that challenge even experienced mountaineers. Winter brings snow - lots of snow, the deepest in the lower 48 states some years, closing the road beyond Longmire and leaving Ashford in a white silence. Spring and fall are the shoulder seasons, when the serious mountaineers have the place largely to themselves, when the weather can turn from sunshine to blizzard in hours, when the mountain reminds everyone who's really in charge.

Every business in Ashford exists because of Mount Rainier, and the mountain returns the favor by dominating every aspect of existence. The weather comes off the glaciers. The economy depends on the park. The visitors want nothing from Ashford except passage to the mountain. It's a peculiar position - being essential but secondary, the last service station before the wilderness. But there's something honest about it. Ashford doesn't pretend to be a destination. It's a threshold, the point where you leave the lowlands behind and enter Rainier's world. The few restaurants know their role: feed the hungry, fuel the adventurous, send them on their way.

The road climbs from Ashford into the park, winding through old-growth forest toward Longmire, the park's historic headquarters. Paradise lies higher still, the most-visited spot in the park, where wildflower meadows in late summer offer views of the mountain that justify every superlative. For those seeking bigger adventures, Ashford is where the expeditions begin - the climbing parties that will spend days working up through Camp Muir and the Disappointment Cleaver, roped together on glaciers, pushing for the summit that fewer than half of all climbers reach. The mountain claims lives most years, a reminder that beauty here comes with genuine danger.