Changes at Mt Rainier -- road closed Tues, Weds

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"Good news! 2 new snowplow operators are onboard, trained, and up and running. Thanks for your patience while we filled these positions. -pw"

Hah. You JUST beat me to posting that!

Glad to see it; looking forward to a good winter We've had many good plow drivers at Mt. R.

I wanted to note that this old thread has just passed sixty thousand views, which might be the most for any TAY thread.  I've been keeping an eye on it, and the overwhelming majority of the tens of thousands of views since the last previous comment have been during business hours. Almost a thousand views occurred during the current eight-day closure of Paradise.  I'm thinking most of these during the past couple years were on government computers by employees of the poor overworked, underfunded NPS.

The Park had the road closed yesterday because of Avi hazard. Today they tweeted first a delay in opening and then tweeted closure because of equipment issues. There is a new twitterer who doesn't look happy...
Ashford Valley ‏@ashfordvalleywa 9m9 minutes ago
@MountRainierNPS The parking lot is plowed 3 rigs sitting there. Can you explain a bit more exactly what equipment?

Which came first.. an apathetic population or lazy management?..

Which came first..  an apathetic population or lazy management?..

Ronald Reagan came first: "gov't is the problem"

Forecast was for snow this past weekend so assumed they wouldn't open the gate..  What actually happened..?

13" overnight fri/sat, gate opened Sat about 12:30.
1" overnight sat/sun, gate opened on time @ 9:00.

Someone called out the MRNPS on this mornings road opening delay excuse...

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Kinda like their tag line.. "keeping an eye out and enjoying Ashford and Mount Rainier". So I added them to my list..

Sunday, 13 Mar 16: The gate to Paradise at Longmire will remain closed today due to winter storm warnings. The road is open to Longmire. - tks
 
Monday, 14 Mar 16:  The gate to Paradise at Longmire will remain closed today due to due to avalanche danger. The road is open to Longmire. –– mm

Tuesday, 15 Mar 16:  The gate to Paradise at Longmire will not open today due to a shortage in staffing required to ensure public safety. Longmire is open.

Well, Gary, since your near New Year observation of record thread view here, it's another 20K in under 3 months...   That half dozen or so folks at MRNP HQ have been pretty busy here, eh?..

That half dozen or so folks at MRNP HQ have been pretty busy here, eh?..

Being bumped to the first page of Random Tracks probably accounts for most of the recent increase.  The older thread about Monika was bumped about the same time and shows a similar proportional increase.  I wonder if the 'Views' counter can handle six figures?

My previous speculation was after many months on page two and three.  In any case, it's not just park HQ, and it's not just a half dozen.  Previous increases were mostly during the summer seasons, which I attribute to the hundreds of seasonals and volunteers.  There are probably computers everywhere the park has electricity.  Entrance stations, sewer plants, every maintenance and science office, Carbon River and Ohana have skeleton staffs all year, etc.

Looking on the bright side, David, if Parkies are viewing, perhaps they actually learned something.  Government computers have been used for worse purposes        www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/ar...AR2009101802380.html

16 Mar 16: Due to minor road work the Longmire gate opening will be delayed until 10am. –– mm

Also, FWIW, there is allegedly a "millenial meetup" Saturday at Paradise and the park is planning to have all their LEOs on duty.

As for these latest closures, to be fair to the park service... they did get 3-4 feet of new snow at paradise over the last few days and weekend.

...they did get 3-4 feet of new snow at paradise over the last few days and weekend.

Hmmmm, is is winter... they have equipment, though it may be buried under a huge pile of excuses...

The parking lot was cleared by 11:30 yesterday as seen in the timestamp. The official reason for not opening was "lack of personnel"

According to their schedule updated March 12, the Paradise gate is supposed to open at 8 am weekends:
www.nps.gov/mora/planyourvisit/road-status.htm
Despite no new snow on 3-20 and again this morning. the Twitter notices have continued with their habitual message that the opening is "expected" at 9 am (as opposed to "delayed").  Did somebody not get the memo?

Now this will be talked about a lot as it is another prominent holiday today...
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Now this will be talked about a lot as it is another prominent holiday today...
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Often people don't like to work on weekends or holidays; sometimes they refuse, sometimes they call in sick.

How many of the closures like the one today (see below) could actually have been predicted & announced the day before (or the week before or the month before)?

"The road to Paradise at Longmirewill not open today due to a shortage of staffing required to ensure public safety. Longmire is open. - tks"

Often people don't like to work on weekends or holidays; sometimes they refuse, sometimes they call in sick.

Past Easters have usually been busy. I'd have thought they'd have all hands on deck for the last day of snowplay and guided snowshoe walks.  Perhaps this 'staph' infection is just snow fatigue?  Quite a few of the staff seem to think the Paradise 'default' setting is meadows filled with flowers, not snow:  rainiervolunteers.blogspot.com/2016/03/v...potlight-part-2.html

We got nailed in that closure. Had to reroute to plan B while originally enroute to Paradise. Called the PS to inquire as to the cause of the last minute change and got a courteous and apologetic ranger that said that a SAR issue came up.

How interesting. Search and Rescue...and nobody was called. Who was this said SAR? This is beyond complete bullshit. Nobody will call them on this one....unless you have proof that that was the actual reason.

On another note the TNT did an editorial on the 2000+ backcountry reservations lost in todays paper.

www.thenewstribune.com/opinion/editorials/article68328967.html

MRNPS has gone to hell. Not going...gone and done....Happy 100! Now just stay the hell away...

How interesting. Search and Rescue...and nobody was called. Who was this said SAR? This is beyond complete bullshit. Nobody will call them on this one....unless you have proof that that was the actual reason.

...

MRNPS has gone to hell. Not going...gone and done....Happy 100! Now just stay the hell away...

I can understand some degree of cynicism given the park's recent history on opening the road. I feel the same way at times, especially when they screw everybody over like they did with the needless 1 hour delay on Saturday morning. That extra hour would have been very nice to have that day, given the incoming clouds and bad weather which made the light go totally flat by 3pm. And that delay appeared not to have any legitimate reason (at least none given to the public), just some sort of miscommunication or error on their part.

But why have such a spiteful assumption of bad faith on the part of MRNP staff and rangers? You really think they would make up a story about a SAR? It's pretty unlikely that anyone there would lie about a SAR . . .

And it turns out your assumption was totally unwarranted, as the SAR is real (2 separate SAR calls, in fact!):
www.nps.gov/mora/learn/news/sar_3-2016.htm

Search and Rescue Operations Underway at Mount Rainier

Contact: Patti Wold, PIO, 360-569-6701

Monday, March 28, 2016 — Operations are underway to extract two patients from Camp Muir, at 10,000’ on Mount Rainier’s south slope. In separate incidents a climbing party of two and a snowshoer were unexpectedly caught out overnight in a winter storm Saturday. The patients, the snowshoer and one member of the climbing party are in stable condition at Camp Muir. The second climber, a 58 year old male from Norway, is believed to be near Gibraltar Ledges.

The first operational objective is to assess weather and snow conditions prior to putting crews in the field. The patients will be extracted from Camp Muir by air if possible, or by ground. Weather permitting, air operations will conduct reconnaissance for the second member of the climbing team. A Chinook CH47 out of JBLM with two climbing rangers and an investigator on board attempted to approach the mountain on Sunday, but the weather was too extreme to reach Camp Muir. The mission will be attempted again today under improving conditions.


The climbing party of two left Paradise on Thursday, March 24, for the summit via Gibraltar Ledges. Their permit indicates that they overnighted at Camp Muiron Friday night and were to begin their climb on Saturday morning, March 26. Private parties at Camp Muir reported overnight gear left there all day when no one returned to use it Saturday night. The park initiated search operations Sunday morning. Sunday afternoon one member of the climbing party was seen descending from the Gibraltar Ledges route to Camp Muir. Several individuals assisted the climber back to the public shelter at Camp Muir. The climber, a 41-year old female Canadian, is reported to be alert and ambulatory.

In a second, unrelated, incident a spot locator beacon began signaling on the Muir Snowfield Saturday night, and continued through the night. The beacon belongs to a solo snowshoer, a 26-year old male from Lacey, Washington, attempting to reach Camp Muir to overnight Saturday. The snowshoer eventually made it to Camp Muir on Sunday. He is reported to be alert and ambulatory with some frostbite.


A winter storm hit the mountain Saturday night, at approximately 6:00 pm. Both parties were unexpectedly caught out overnight in blowing snow with temperatures in the single digits. Search crews encountered the same conditions Sunday while ascending to Camp Muir.

Weather is expected to improve which will assist search operations. A drier northerly flow will allow the top part of the mountain to begin clearing early today with a good chance of partly cloudy to mostly sunny conditions beginning Monday afternoon. Avalanche conditions are considerable. Members of Seattle, Olympic, Tacoma, and Everett mountain rescues, volunteer Nordic Patrol, US Army Reserve B Company of the 1-214th Air Battalion and Northwest Helicopters are assisting. Rainier Guest Services provided dinner for the operation on Sunday.

-NPS-

I think we all need to temper our anger over the park's (mis)management of the road opening in recent years, and instead assume some degree of good faith when they do provide a legitimate reason for closure or delay, like a SAR. Especially regarding the rangers (climbing rangers, wilderness rangers, and even the much-maligned law enforcement rangers) who really are doing their best to ensure public safety in one of the most extreme (readily-accessible) weather environments in the world.

So, to tinker with Gary's question about all those NPS employees ratcheting up the thread view, why is it that every topic before the beginning of February has at least 2k views, including the ones with no replies..?    5, 6, 7k views to all threads by bottom of page..   Marcus, you been linked.. Big Brother got an eye on you..?