Changes at Mt Rainier -- road closed Tues, Weds

FWIW, here's the park's performance on the first day of the 'enhanced' visitor services (No tweet on Wed.):
Th    11-29  (7:01)  Projected 8 am; (8:12) Projected 9 am; (8:51) Open. 
There was one inch of new snow on telemetry.

To be fair, quite a few people are probably having their schedules shuffled to concentrate human resources on fewer days.

The relationship between weather and opening times is probably a lot more complex than simply a function of the daily new snow amount.  Substantial snow in Longmire can set the start back a couple hours.  Push plows can throw it over the bank up to about 3-4 foot deep berms, depending on the density of the new snow and the straightness of the road.  Beyond that, at least one pass on each side with some sort of rotary equipment is often required.  Above 5K, it's commonly necessary in late winter to cut the roadbanks down with a dozer or the Pisten Bully, so the big rotaries can throw it out.    Usually this is done on days with no new snow.  Strong winds can drift the lots full even when there is little new snow.  Sanding on the weekends can add an hour, but they usually don't sand much if it's snowing or forecast to.  The old-time road foreman, Ed Iverson, still lives in Ashford and told me clearing the lots takes about half the time and the rest of the road the other half on any given day. 

The early season road berms are probably nearly double the actual cumulative snow depth, until heavy rains.  Right now, I'd say they're not having to use the rotaries much and opening times should be at their best.   

In the good old days, they used to start uphill with three push plows, as far as they could get.  The center truck had a wedge blade and roared right up the centerline at 30-40 mph.  It's quite a thrill to ride along and see the huge 'bow waves' flying into the darkness after a big dump.  Plows with straight blades would follow on each side, falling behind to clear the turnouts.  The ranger would set up the barricades at Cougar Rock by 9 am most weekdays.  It was not unusual to open to Narada by ten and Paradise by noon, even with two feet of new snow.

It's too bad there probably are no records concerning Paradise gate opening times prior to last winter's tweets.  Even if the park cared enough to keep daily logs in past years, good luck getting a look at them.  (Sorry Randy, I'm way too old to lose any more time playing the FOIA game.)

I'm a tech caveman, but it might be interesting if one of TAY's math wizards were to compare past monthly snowfall with monthly park visitor totals for say, November thru April of each year.  I'd expect to see an overall declining trend for winter visitation paralleling, but steeper than, the national NPS trend for three decades. Also some sort of correlation between the snowiest months (presumably the ones with the most closed days) and the months with fewest visitors.   

Mount Rainier monthly visitation statistics:
irma.nps.gov/Stats/SSRSReports/Park%20Sp...By%20Month?Park=MORA

Rough visual analysis suggests that the park has managed to cut winter visitation (Jan-Mar) more or less 50% since its peak in 1989-1990; also suggests that the winter visitor use/day that the Park used in its PR about reduced access might reflect the winter closure in 2007 and the amount of closed days last Jan for LE, trauma, and S&R and unusually severe weather/avalanche conditions in Jan/Feb last year, altho 2009 visitation seems low, too, and I can't recall why.

Thanks for posting the data, Gary; it is interesting; if I still had my statistical analytical skills and the temperance required, I do some real analysis; as it is, I'm just waiting for the Park to open again or the snow level to drop.

Nine inches of new  last night, and plowing well on the way to completion by 08:30:

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Calling Scotsman!  Is there a Scotsman in the house?  davidG?

I don't even know how to post the original Dilbert, let alone photoshop it.
www.uclick.com/client/sea/dt/2012/12/04/index.html
The pointy-haired bosses' clothes could be green with a brass badge, maybe holding a ranger stetson.
We could have a contest to change the first caption.
First prize could be Ashford lodging on Tuesday nights. 
How about 'Our visitors are staying away because...'

Here's your image posted Vogty!
Don't have time to photoshop for you right now as I'm busy telling somebody on another internet site that I'm right and they are wrong!

here it is

...altho 2009 visitation seems low, too, and I can't recall why.

A big storm caused serious road damage on Glacier Hill early in that year. About a hundred feet of one lane slid away along the line of the buried utilities, apparently poorly backfilled.  All the park's plows and vehicles continued to use the road.  Park press releases at the time at first suggested Paradise would have to remain closed for the winter, then that it could only be open weekends with flaggers.  After a few weeks, they put up jersey barriers with stop signs at each end and resumed daily openings.  The road remained that way until it was finally repaired the following summer. 

It is quite clear that weekday closures of Paradise have been a management objective for years.  Don't confuse this episode with what I call 'The Big Lie' of 2006-07; more on that later...

Goodbye Paradise?   1-5-2009
www.turns-all-year.com/skiing_snowboardi...ex.php?topic=11785.0

Nisqually road to Paradise closed, 01-12-2009
www.turns-all-year.com/skiing_snowboardi...ex.php?topic=11868.0

Mt. Rainier NP achieves major milestone  January 2009
www.turns-all-year.com/skiing_snowboardi...ex.php?topic=11909.0

I'm a tech caveman, but it might be interesting if one of TAY's math wizards were to compare past monthly snowfall with monthly park visitor totals for say, November thru April of each year.  I'd expect to see an overall declining trend for winter visitation paralleling, but steeper than, the national NPS trend for three decades. Also some sort of correlation between the snowiest months (presumably the ones with the most closed days) and the months with fewest visitors.   

Rough visual analysis suggests that the park has managed to cut winter visitation (Jan-Mar) more or less 50% since its peak in 1989-1990; also suggests  that the winter visitor use/day that the Park used in its PR about reduced access might reflect the winter closure in 2007 and the amount of closed days last Jan for LE, trauma, and S&R and unusually severe weather/avalanche conditions in Jan/Feb last year, altho 2009 visitation seems low, too, and I can't recall why.

If someone can point me to the best resource for historical monthly snowfall totals/levels at Paradise, I can do some basic analysis.  My cursory search brought me to two sources, neither of which seemed ideal:
- www.climate.washington.edu/snowdepth/ - excellent graphs from NWAC data, but I couldn't find a way to get that data in chart form.
- www.wrcc.dri.edu/cgi-bin/cliMONtsnf.pl?wa6898 - from the Western Regional Climate Center, but there seem to be a lot of months with days of missing data, so I'm not sure how accurate it is.

Anywhere better to get this information?

If you can direct me to where to find overall NPS visitation stats (my cursory search only found by park/location), I can make those comparisons as well.

For now, here's a graph to make visualizing winter Paradise visitation stats easier.  I defined "winter" as November-April.  While there is a lot of variation from year to year, at least in the past few years number are lower than most previous years.  This could be for a lot of reasons, but if someone can direct me to some of the above data resources, we can at least see if a couple of variables might account for the local decrease (or not).

Good work, knitvt, thanks!  Perhaps what you need in terms of visitor stats is at:  irma.nps.gov/Stats/Reports/ReportList 

Looking at knitvt's fine graph, the large downspike for 2006-07 is the six-month closure of the entire park, of course.  The downspikes for the mid 90's might be explained by flooding closures?  water.weather.gov/ahps2/river.php?wfo=se...74&data%5B%5D=crests

FYI, from an email I received:

December 4, 2012


You are invited to attend one of our two upcoming community meetings to discuss this year’s winter operations at Mount Rainier National Park. Superintendent Randy King will provide a brief overview of winter park operations and be available for questions and answers afterwards. Each meeting is expected to last approximately one hour. These meetings will occur on the following dates, times and locations:

Tuesday, December 11th, Ashford Mountain Haus, 4:00 to 5:00 p.m.
(note: the Mountain Haus is located between Whittaker Mountaineering and Whittaker’s Bunkhouse in Ashford. It is the building that houses the Visitor Information center).

Wednesday, December 12, Enumclaw Library, 4:00 to 5:00 p.m.

Please forward this invitation on to others you feel might be interested in attending.

For more information please call Donna Rahier at 360-569-6501 or via e-mail - This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

--
Donna Rahier
Superintendent's Office
360-569-6501
This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

Yeah because that's going to be well attended by the people who use the park  :

Andrew Carey if you go tell them you officially represent all of TAY, because no one else could make it to Asford by 4:00 on a Tuesday. Also, notice which two days of the week they are holding them on.

Yeah because that's going to be well attended by the people who use the park  :

Andrew Carey if you go tell them you officially represent all of TAY, because no one else could make it to Asford by 4:00 on a Tuesday.  Also, notice which two days of the week they are holding them on.

I think anyone who claimed to be representing all of TAY (or any other bc group) would be open to setting themselves up for a verbal lynching LOL

The park's justifications for this no-warning royal proclamation seem to boil down to low visitation and insufficient funding, but it really is just a matter of priorities, IMO.  The low visitation is a self-inflicted wound; they have alienated their natural winter constituency through unreliable openings and poor communication for twenty years. This past Thanksgiving I asked at the VC desk if chains were still required to descend, since the road had mostly melted out during the day.  The uniformed employee kindly and efficiently called and double-checked for me, but her initial comment stunned me:  "Oh, they never tell us when it changes."

No government bureaucracy ever thinks its funding is sufficient.  I realize the budget for the entire National Park Service is probably less than the rounding errors in some Pentagon projects, but for a sense of the National Park Service's twisted priorities and bloated, top-heavy management, check out:  www.schundler.net/PayScales.pdf

Public closure seems the favorite arrow in Rainier management's quiver. In 2006, that pricy new VC was so behind schedule and over budget (ultimately over ten times the initial estimates) that a 'Big Lie' six-month public closure of the entire park was required to finish it.  Management  wanted to close again for the entire winter in 2009 for relatively minor damage on Glacier Hill.  Every year they have money to repair the Westside Road for "administrative use", but public vehicles have been excluded for over two decades.  Most of you probably know the sad situation of recent years where Sunrise is kept closed for weeks after the road is plowed.

I'm not saying there wasn't flooding in November, 2006.  Park road crew and a local WA DOT supervisor all said the road repairs could have been made in "3-4 weeks, tops".  A press release put out the cover story that the months of delay were due to special-ordering a culvert from Arizona.  Contractors at the VC and their heavy trucks missed only a few days work; the park continued plowing for them until reopening. Their favorite, and most favored, concessioner RMI had access to Paradise for their guided trips while the public was forbidden to even walk across the park boundary.  Some rangers were overheard in local businesses bragging about skiing all winter!  Good for them, they deserved it then and perhaps more so now... 

The bottom line in 2006-07 was that completing their unnecessary new Visitor Center (open less than half the days of the year) was a higher priority than public access.  Even if the touted "green" design saves a million dollars a year (unlikely), it will still take 25 years to break even on the construction costs.  By then there may be impaired views from the building due to climate change forest growth, and the bureaucrats will probably be clammoring for a $100 million replacement VC.

One of my neighbors was park Road Foreman in the 70's.  He told stories of the 1947 mudflow at Kautz Ck (same place that washed out in 2006).  The USGS reports indicate at least ten times as much debris moved in '47 as in '06. Yet according to Ed, the repairs were done in-house in a few months without the multimillion dollar special appropriations the modern NPS needs just to get out of its own way!

....Even if the touted "green" design saves a million dollars a year...

Where are you getting those figures?  The Seattle PI article makes much more modest claims about fuel savings:

At current rates, that is an annual savings of $143,353, Mummart said. Given the building's expected life span of 50 years, the savings could top $7.1 million.

and about the cost of the new building

Friday's opening of the new Henry M. Jackson Memorial Visitor Center completes a nearly $50 million, nine-year transformation of Paradise at Mount Rainier National Park.

www.seattlepi.com/local/article/New-visi...Paradise-1287731.php

The old building was a mess in many ways -- I suppose one good thing about it was that the fuel guzzling "snow melt" roof design did force the NPS to keep the road open to supply it's 300-500 gallon per day thirst for diesel fuel. With the new JVC, the NPS could close the road in November and opening it in May without have the JVC crushed by the snow.

Thanks for your reply, Randy.  My million per year figure was just an example with convenient geezer math.  This article mentions a $22 M price tag; I've seen others (that I couldn't locate right away) that claimed $29 M:
www.nationalparkstraveler.com/2008/10/im...e-new-visitor-center
The higher figure might include demolishing the old VC.

If the 'savings' are indeed $7M in fifty years, doesn't that work out to over 150 years before they equal the construction costs?

I don't think cost savings was the primary justification for building a new building. The old building had a lot of problems with leaking pipes in the snow melt system and many other systems. I recall that the estimates for fixing the existing building were substantially higher than for building a new building. The old JVC was actually designed originally for use in Hawaii, so it really was a poor design for a location with 50 ft of snow per year. The fuel savings narrative makes better copy in the media than "the old building was a turkey that we are glad to be done with"

At least the new building doesn't look like a spaceship.

The old building was a mess and the amount of heating oil/diesel they burned was immense; the particulates from that are extremely hazardous to public health.  Given the condition of the building, I'm glad they tore it down.  I just wished they had replaced it with a nice little alpine lodge/warming hut structure in which you could get warm, eat lunch, or in the most improbable of dreams, have a hamburger and a beer!  BTW, such a structure existed at Paradise in the good old days. 

I would have liked to see the new visitor center, with its displays, with a bus terminal (and parking lot), and maybe a campground in or around Ashford where it would have been tremendously less expensive to build, available year-round, and serve as a transportation-interpretation-education hub.  That would have been nice and freed up parking space and space for a small alpine Inn while really facilitating the use of buses in the summer.

I also wish they would mandate the use of propane powered buses instead of diesel buses.  The tall trees on the way to Narada Falls trap the pollutants and the idling diesels at Longmire, Christine Falls, Ricksecker Point, Narada Falls, and Paradise really play havoc with the lungs of us bicyclists, especially, but also anybody who happens to be behind such a bus for up to a mile or so.  The documented health effects aren't too bad: severe adult onset asthma, lung cancer, ADHD in small children, and impairment of neurological development in the unborn.

... I just wished they had replaced it with a nice little alpine lodge/warming hut structure in which you could get warm, eat lunch, or in the most improbable of dreams, have a hamburger and a beer!  BTW, such a structure existed at Paradise in the good old days... 

I just wished enough money was leftover after this spending spree to utilize the existing water/sewer connections and construct a winterized restroom at the old VC site.  Then they could open the lower lot while the upper was being plowed, as in previous decades.

While we're on this subject, Randy, do you happen to know how much of that $50 Milllion figure went towards the Paradise Inn renovations?  Was it the balance not spent on the VC?  Or does that $50M include the ~$8M spent on the three-story, drive-thru dormitory for staff?

As I said earlier, the NPS is a rather lavishly funded agency...that loves to use its woeful budget as an excuse.

I saw a figure on a NPS website of 22 million for the new JVC.

When it comes to wasteful federal spending, the NPS is chump change, 93 million is being spent this year to built M1 tanks that the army has no need for, there are dozens other similar military industrial complex spending projects.

Don't forget so-called Homeland Security, who make the Pentagon look thrifty! 

So taxpayers have spent north of fifty million on Paradise buildings and probably a similar amount on roads in recent years and you're OK with us being excluded about 15% of the year?  How about when Paradise is closed four days a week for half the year like Hurricane Ridge?  IMO, that infrastructure spending is especially wasteful if we're locked out.

Some new information:

MRNP budget cuts could be severe

In the article, Randy King (MRNP Supt) says the Tues-Wed closures was made "in part" because of budget issues (MRNP current annual operating budget of $11.7 million is down $500,000 in base funding from the preceding years), but the Park has "vacancies in critical positions, on our snow removal crew in particular."  MRNP has developed a contingency plan for dealing with the upcoming 8.2% cut that will occur if we go off the fiscal speed bump; IMHO the staffing problems and vacancies in the critical positions most likely are due in some small part to past recent cuts and in larger part to dealing with the anticipated cuts.

Thus, the problem is ours and we must own it.  We vote for/or tolerate the most massive military spending the world has ever known; the 15 new Marine fighter jets will cost over $1 trillion before they are done and Congress isn't even sure they will work.  We are seriously considering raising the age for SS and Medicare and reducing funding for education.  We  bail out bankers and corporations who fight paying any taxes.

So, if you value our Parks, especially our western Parks that feature nature's grandeur and outdoor experience of sublime quality, you need to make your support known.  You will probably have to take a stand on opposing funding priorities: battlefield parks in the East vs. nature Parks in the West; military bases on 770 overseas locations vs. spending on education vs. Parks.  Paying taxes vs. paying fees.  Sermon over. LOL

No worries, mates!  Even when Rainier, North Cascades and Olympic are closed to any entry all year, our green VC designers will still be on the job...   :

An eminent and distinguished  public servant,  Earl Devaney, none other than the Inspector General of the Department of the Interior, stated at a Congressional hearing:

"Mr. Chairman and members of the committee, I have served in Federal government for a little over 32 years, I have never seen an organization more unwilling to accept constructive criticism or embrace new ideas than the National Park Service. Their culture is to fight fiercely to protect the status quo and reject any idea that is not their own. Their strategy to enforce the status quo is to take any new idea, such as law enforcement reform, and study it to death. Thus an IG recommendation or for that matter, Secretarial directive, falls victim to yet another Park Service work group charged by their National Leadership Council to defend the status quo from those of us who just do not understand the complexities of being a ranger."

www.workingnet.com/thunderbear/288.html
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earl_Devaney

...there's no way to know for sure, but word on the street in Ashford is that the park has a hundred permanent employees. 

I wanted to correct my earlier erroneous statement and estimate; Mount Rainier National Park has about 125 permanent employees: www.nps.gov/mora/parkmgmt/jobs.htm

There probably are at least a few 'term' and seasonal employees on duty in winter in addition to the above figure.

It's going slowly, but I'm trying to use  php.app.com/fed_employees10/search.php  to 'reverse engineer' an organization chart and get a better sense of management's priorities when dividing whatever operational financial pie they have.

I met Randy King (Supt., Mt. Rainier NP) and his wife XC skiing on the Paradise Valley Road today on our way out from a wonderful bc day. I wished Randy and Sally Happy New Year! and we discussed the closures. He said he thought about me when making the decision to close on Tues and Wed (he likes to tell people about the old fart who skies 100 days/year in the Park)--he said "I said to myself, Andy isn't going to be happy about this!" I told him I wasn't and that I wrote Sens. Murray and Cantwell and Congr. Reichart; he said he was surprised he hadn't hear anything, I said you did hear from Reichart's aide; he said oh yeah. He's asked Guest Services to track declining use of the concessions and Park people to monitor gate receipts. He said the closures were principally due to loss of snow removal people and he didn't know if they could open at regular hours again; the LEO group is against 7 days/week with reduced plow staff. I said it would be very nice if they couid go to 7 days/week when the days got longer, that the delayed openings made it impractical for longer bc tours. I also said encouraging the responsible people to update the twitter ASAP would be a big help in reducing the amount of frustration and anger at the Park in the Longmire parking lot, when hordes are awaiting a delayed opening.

I met Randy King (Supt., Mt. Rainier NP) and his wife XC skiing on the Paradise Valley Road today on our way out from a wonderful bc day.  I wished Randy and Sally Happy New Year! and we discussed the closures.

Did you ask Randy if the road is really going to be closed tomorrow (Wed, Jan 2), despite no need to plow anything?

No info regarding tomorrow has been posted on the Twitter feed yet, and the latest news release (www.nps.gov/mora/parknews/winter-holidays.htm) mentions only that the road would be open daily through Jan 1, so it seems safest to assume the worst: that it will be closed.

Good thing Amar posted ! We were blinded by the good weather,sun and holiday cheer and packed our gear for more Tatooshing Tomorrow. What a waste of resources! Bullion or Snoqualomie now I guess ?

Considering the zoo Paradise has been for the past several days, it seems safe to assume it will be closed Wednesday.

The original Twitter notificaton on Nov. 16 stated only that Paradise would be closed in winter Tu-W because they were the days with lowest visitation.  This tweet was deleted sometime in late November.  A tweet on Nov. 21, updated to amend the original unpopular backcountry camping restriction, elaborated:

"New this winter and starting November 27, the road between Longmire and Paradise will be closed to public travel on Tuesdays and Wednesdays. Longmire and the park will remain open seven days a week, barring major storm events.

"We are strategically deploying available park staff and resources to provide access to Paradise Thursday through Monday, the five days of the week with greatest visitation," King said.

Visitation statistics show that Tuesday and Wednesday are, on average, the park's least visited days, with fewer than 60 visitor vehicles coming through the Nisqually Entrance on a typical day. By focusing staff on fewer days, the park will be better able to provide access and services during times of greatest visitation, including more consistent road plowing and emergency patrols for visitor safety."

A Dec. 8 TNT story, linked in Andy's reply #113 above, emphasizes the closures were needed to prepare for threatened budget cuts.

Now Supt. King thinks it's mostly due to the critical vacancies, which weren't mentioned until the Dec. 11 meeting in Ashford.  Apparently, only one of the vacancies was advertised and that for only two weeks, three and a half months after the previous rotary operator died of a heart attack.

This has the feel of justifications made following a decision, rather than preceeding and causing it.  The camping update suggests the policy was not completely thought out before it's rather odd announcement.  It appears the new policy is not to open Paradise until 10:30 or 11 on Mondays, Thursdays, and Fridays even with one inch or no new snow; so much for "more consistent plowing". 

Maybe it's the glut of detective shows on TV, but doesn't a shifting story with unexplained holes in it usually imply dishonesty?  Especially when the suspect, I mean agency, has such an extensive rap sheet of enthusiasm for public closures.