Yes, they're paving Paradise at Mount Rainier National Park, and that means parking at the popular destination will be very limited for the next three weeks.
The paving project is scheduled to begin Tuesday on both the upper parking lot near the Jackson Visitor Center and the Paradise Inn, and in the lower parking lot. Visitors who will be parking overnight in the Paradise area between September 5 and September 23 should park either along the Paradise Valley Road or in the Paradise Picnic Area.
“While we realize that park visitors could be impacted by the paving project, September provides the contractor with a small window of time when visitation drops off and when temperatures and moisture levels are still suitable for paving,” said Superintendent Randy King.
The paving project will occur in phases. For the week of September 6–9, work will occur Tuesday through Friday between the hours of 7 a.m. and 5 p.m. Half of the spaces in the upper parking lot near the Paradise Inn and half of the lower parking lot will be unavailable for parking as workers mill the asphalt and repair damaged areas. Flaggers will direct vehicles needing access to the Paradise Inn. The closed area will be signed and cars parked in the closed area will be ticketed and towed.
For the week of September 11–16, work will occur Monday through Friday between the hours of 7 a.m. and 5 p.m. This week work shifts to the other half of the upper and lower parking lots where workers will continue to mill the asphalt and repair damaged areas. Flaggers will direct vehicles needing access to the Paradise Inn and the Jackson Visitor Center. The area that was closed the first week will be open for parking, but the parking lot surface will be gravel and without parking stripe lines.
It is anticipated that the entire lot will be paved the week of September 19–23. Sections of the parking lots will be closed as paving progresses. The project is scheduled to be completed on September 23, but the schedule is subject to change based on weather and worksite conditions.
The paving project is one part of a four-year project to repair and pave the park road between the Nisqually Entrance and Paradise. Each year thousands of vehicles, cycles of freezing and thawing, and falling trees take their toll on the road. Improvements to the road will preserve its integrity as a popular and historic drive and will provide safe access for years to come.
Comments
I've heard that Joni Mitchell's famous lyrics from her song "Big Yellow Taxi" -- the refrain about paving paradise and putting up a parking lot -- actually comes from when she worked at Mt. Rainier's Paradise Lodge. Any truth to that?
This has been a common tale for many decades at Mount Rainier and so many of the lyrics fit that I can see why the story has had so much appeal, even though her bio fails to mention Rainier.
"Mitchell said this about writing the song to journalist Alan McDougall in the early 1970s:
I wrote 'Big Yellow Taxi' on my first trip to Hawaii. I took a taxi to the hotel and when I woke up the next morning, I threw back the curtains and saw these beautiful green mountains in the distance. Then, I looked down and there was a parking lot as far as the eye could see, and it broke my heart... this blight on paradise. That's when I sat down and wrote the song"
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Yellow_Taxi
The lines: "Take all the trees, put 'em in a tree museum. Charge the people a dollar and a half just to see 'em" have apparently been altered to 'twenty-five bucks' in recent cover versions by other artists and to ' an arm and a leg' by Joni herself.
Thanks for setting the record straight. The Mt. Rainier version of Joni Mitchell's song makes a good story, though! I wonder how many other national park myths there are? Here in Utah, for example, Ed Abbey is commonly thought to have spent his "season in the wilderness" all alone at a trailer in Arches National Monument, while in fact he spent two summers there (1956-57), the second with his wife and small child, and was hardly alone all the time.