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Mount Rainier National Park Ready For Winter Operations

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Sunset on Mount Rainier National Park/NPS, Kevin Bacher

With any weather system luck, Mount Rainier National Park could be looking like this in a few weeks/NPS, Kevin Bacher

Let it snow. That's the message from Mount Rainier National Park, where the staff has the park ready for winter operations. Though many park roads are closed to vehicle access for the winter, areas throughout the park remain open for recreation.

“Visitors can come have a great park experience during a time that offers incredible seasonal opportunities, if they plan ahead, prepare for changing conditions, and know their limitations,” said Superintendent Randy King in a release.

The Longmire area will remain open seven days a week, unless major storm events require closure. Open daily from 9 a.m. to 4:30 p.m., the Longmire Museum provides general park information, winter activity guidance, backcountry permits, and Discover Your Northwest books and maps for sale.

The historic National Park Inn provides lodging, food, gifts, and snowshoe/ski rentals.  At Paradise, the Henry M. Jackson Memorial Visitor Center is open weekends only, from 10 a.m. to 4:15 p.m., with additional days of operation for the holidays on November 26-27, and December 23-January 3.

The Paradise snowplay area is not yet open. A sufficient snowpack depth is needed before snowplay can be opened, for both visitor safety and to avoid resource damage to the fragile meadows below. Further updates will be announced, depending on conditions.

Ranger-guided snowshoe walks at Paradise are scheduled to begin December 23 and continue through March 27, 2016. The walks will be offered on weekends and holiday periods when the visitor center is open, begin at 11 a.m. and 1:30 p.m., and last two hours each. Sign-ups are filled on a first-come, first-served basis, and begin one hour in advance of each walk at the Jackson Visitor Center information desk. Participants should dress warmly (layers), have warm hats and gloves and wear appropriate footwear suitable for snowshoes. Sunglasses, sunscreen, and water are also advised.

On January 2, reserved snowshoe walks will begin for groups of 15 to 25 visitors, from 2 p.m. to 4 p.m. Group reservations can be made by calling 360-569-6575 between the hours of 9:30 a.m. and 4 p.m. If the gate opening between Longmire and Paradise is delayed, snowshoe walk times may be adjusted or led from the Longmire Museum.

As in past years, the main gate at the southwest entrance to the park (Nisqually) will remain open 24 hours a day, seven days a week unless hazardous conditions require a temporary closure. The higher elevation gate, located on the road between Longmire and Paradise is closed nightly to ensure visitor and staff safety, with uphill access closing at 4 p.m. to allow time for visitors and staff to exit safely.

Each morning, rangers and road crew staff will evaluate road, weather, and avalanche conditions to determine when it is safe to open the road above Longmire. The standard open hours of this road are from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. with daily road opening/closing updates posted to Twitter. Follow the feed at twitter.com/MountRainierNPS.

Comments

Mount Rainier's managers did not seem very ready for winter operations on November 27th.  This was a widely publicized free-admission day ('Green Friday') with warm temperatures and sunny skies.  Normally, the vehicle traction requirements are posted and no rangers are on duty at the Longmire winter gate.  Despite the 'Approved Traction Tires Advised' sign, each vehicle was asked to show they had tire chains on this day.

By the time I returned from Paradise to Longmire in mid-afternoon, the backup of vehicles at the inspection station was a mile and a half long, about one-quarter of the way back to the park entrance.  Those who passed the check faced a long slow drive to Paradise, where there was almost no parking available.  Significant numbers of vehicles apparently did not have chains.  Longmire parking was full and the roads gridlocked; all turnouts and road shoulders below Longmire were jammed.  Visitors were milling around in the busy road far above and below Longmire.  A hundred cars were backed up at the entrance and hundreds more were enroute to the park as I left.

There appears to be no thought given to winter carrying capacity at this park.  I would guess the total number of parking spaces in lots and twenty miles of turnouts is a few thousand at most.  Apparently, they don't count vehicle entries in real time or have a plan to restrict entry before total gridlock is reached.  A line of a thousand idling vehicles in a National Park is not very 'green'.


Doesn't sound too inviting, was hoping to stop in 12 /19 but maybe the Olympics?

 


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