Stevens Canyon Road: Paradise to SR 123
19 miles inside Mount Rainier National Park connecting the Paradise area to the SR 123/Stevens Canyon entrance, with switchbacks and sustained mountain views. Part of the larger Mount Rainier loop drive combining SR 410, SR 123 and this road.
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Inside Mount Rainier National Park — a park entrance fee applies, and this road closes seasonally with the rest of the park's high-elevation road system. Check current NPS conditions before a trip, especially outside summer. Check current access · Reviewed 2026-09-23
Planning the drive
This is the most technical Washington road in this catalog by the numbers: 43 counted bends and 12 switchbacks over just 19 miles — a density of 2.3 bends per mile, more than double any other Washington road mapped here. Unlike the long mountain-pass highways nearby, this is a compact, switchback-heavy park road connecting the Paradise area to the SR 123 entrance, with sustained views of Mount Rainier along the way.
This road is entirely inside Mount Rainier National Park: a park entrance fee applies, and it closes seasonally with the rest of the park's high-elevation road system, typically outside the summer season. Check current NPS conditions before a trip rather than assuming it matches the status of nearby state highways. NPS: Mount Rainier National Park road information
Roads to connect
- Chinook Pass · SR 410A separate SR 410 mountain crossing nearby, reached via SR 123 at the Cayuse Pass junction.
Driving notes updated .
Road shape
- Length
- 19 mi
- Bends
- 43
- Switchbacks
- 12
- Bends per mile
- 2.3
- Turning per mile
- 279°
- Curviest rank
- 111of 160
Measured from the OpenStreetMap centreline at a 20 m sampling step — road shape only, not a safety or speed judgement. How bends are counted.
Elevation
- Total climb
- 4,175ft
- Climb per mile
- 220ft
- Highest point
- 4,889ft
- Steepest grade
- 6%
Sampled every 100 m from USGS 10 m elevation data, a public-domain federal dataset. Total climb counts vertical change in both directions, so it does not depend on which way you drive. How elevation is measured.
Speed limits
Varies
Unverified
Check posted signs along the road.
No reliable posted limit was found for this selected section. Follow current signs.
Posted signs always govern. How speed evidence is handled.
Sources
Difficulty 2/3 (Winding) is our editorial rating of width, bends and sightlines; “Technical” describes character, not a target speed. Full method. Identified from:
- NPS: Mount Rainier National Park road information
- OpenStreetMap road data (21 ways in this trace)
Reviewed 2026-09-23. The trace shows selected road sections, not a navigation route.
Roads nearby
Distances are approximate straight lines between road centers, not driving distances or direct connections.