More ONP BS / Occupy Hurricane

I'm so tired of the superintendents antics up at Hurricane Ridge - anyone else?  I have one day off a week to ski - Wednesdays and have been shut down on at least 6 occasions by the "helpful" administration of ONP.  So glad Marcus got to get up there last week and see what the ridge can be like, because this is more the norm. Here's their road conditions update from this morning.

Last Update: Wednesday March 14, 2012 at 7:55 am

Road Status: Closed - Road will remain closed for the day due to winter conditions and avalanche danger.

I don't know about anyone else who skis over here but I prefer winter conditions for skiing.  Have you tried skiing in summer conditions?  Less than ideal.  I get that you had plow issues the day before.  Okay.  Was it not taken care of?  Every time I drive up there I see no less than 3 snow moving pieces of equipment.  Every other road that could have been open in the state with the exception of Mt. Baker Highway was open.  How is it so difficult for the maintenance dept. to do their job? 

To add to my frustration ONP also kept the road closed for avalanche danger.  Why?  It's not your job to assess avy conditions and if it was how could you do it from the office in PA?  My 2 partners and I have more combined avy training and forecasting skill than the entire summer and winter park staff. 

The park continues to talk about the feasibility of keeping the road open midweek because the number of user days is down.  How can you expect the user days to do anything but drop if the road isn't open?  Get the road open and people will make the trip.  As I said, I've been shut down 6 times this year.  That's 18-24 more user days that aren't being credited to that number.  How about factoring in the number of visitors that WOULD have been on the ridge had the park service done their job instead of babysitting an entire population of backcountry users across the North Peninsula.

While I'm not a fan of the occupy movement, I'm willing to take this to the next level and Occupy Hurricane Ridge.  Who's with me? 

I live in Port Angeles. If it snows I don't bother with the Hurricane BS, I just drive to Baker. Too many wasted days sitting at the gate waiting for the road to stay closed. If you really want to get frustrated, buy a scanner and listen to the road crew start plowing after their 8am coffee in town.

It was strange going to Mt Cain on Vancouver Island and seeing that they keep their 18km road open with only a single piece of equipment, despite more snowfall.

I doubt anyone has battled the incompetence and apathy of ONP more than StormKing (on this board), but after all the collective effort and wasted money the road is usually closed. I wish the road clearing work would be put out to bid for private contractors.

My advice: Pick your battles. Buy a cheap car with good gas mileage and make the long drive to the Cascades every weekend. That's what I did.

here is a link to another similar thread which has lots of good data and contact information for those who would like to join the occupy movment!

www.turns-all-year.com/skiing_snowboardi...ex.php?topic=23765.0

Sounds like things may have been better back in the previous millenium before the pretense of weekday plowing.  At least we could ski or bike on the closed road and it was often open to vehicles as far as the tunnels, if the road wasn't icy.

As for avalanche hazard evaluation, remember this is an outfit that had their kiddie tube run in an avy path until a couple winters ago! 

Don't get me wrong, most of the field people are hard-working and dedicated, but the management of the NPS is a sorry mess:
www.nationalparkstraveler.com/2011/11/na...es-work-rankings9091
seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews...6020_rainier02m.html

I hear ONP has gutted programs throughout the park to come up with the $1.1 million for a trail bridge at Staircase, apparently gold-plated!

I have no way of knowing whether it is the weather this winter or changing NW National Park policy, but Mt. Rainier has been open fewer days this winter than ever before except in 2007 when it was closed all winter (except to climbing concessionaires) awaiting a culvert from Arizona. Of course some closure this year was due to the shootings, a need for grieving (a week or more), and several lost snowshoers.

IIRC, and my memory may be faulty, this is one of the strangest winters I can remember--big snowfalls with very heavy winds and a lot of higher elevation rainfall, with NWAC reporting high and extreme avalanche danger more frequently than I recall in other winters. There have been more closures this year citing avalanche danger--I don't know if the concern is for the bc adventurer or, more pertinently, for the plow crews. In any case, in many of the weather related closures, I would not have skied above Paradise due to really poor visibility (I did not consider this much before I retired because I had few days to ski) and pretty high to very high winds.

It is curious that the non-profit Mount Tahoma Ski Trails on industrial forest and DNR lands have been open more often, with their all volunteer workforce and minimal equipment, than is the road to Paradise (they are lower in elevation, but face other challenges using logging roads); of course the National Forests have closed their snow parks around here. Just not enough political pressure from non-motorized enthusiasts to make a difference in forest funding and forest policy.

www.nwhikers.net/forums/viewtopic.php?t=7997084

According to this report on nwhikers, two(?) rangers are hanging out at staircase while staircase is closed all winter.

For those scoring at home NPS stats page www.nature.nps.gov/stats/viewReport.cfm shows 44 Staircase vehicles in January and 8 in Feb. A quick look also shows that HR is the most visited road in the park, excluding Highway 101.

In the past, when the road was open 3 days a week, the rangers at the ridge were one from Staircase, one or two from Elwha, and two posted at Hurricane Ridge.  The Elwha and Hurricane districts and rangers overlapped.  During this time the Sunrise sledding area was operating which generally required a ranger to be posted on site.  This has since closed for safety reasons.

Part of the $325,000 extra cost to keep the road open weekdays has been for two winter seasonal rangers, for a total of five.  Disregarding the question of whether five rangers are necessary to protect park resources from less than 1,000 visitors max (due to parking restrictions), it seems like the extra money has been used to re distribute ranger staff to Staircase and the Elwha.  As far as I can tell, rangers from those areas no longer patrol to the ridge at all.

None of this is a particularly bad thing except that the park's main (only) objection to weekday access is cost.

Furthermore, as pointed out in the links, both Staircase and Elwha have been closed for the majority of the past two winters.

I've been able to talk with the chiefs of maintainece for Crater Lake and Grand Teton.  As confirmed in this www.docstoc.com/docs/56344376/Crater-Lake-Reflections-newspaper Crater Lake park newspaper, those road staffs keep their roads open 24/7 by working from 4 am to 8 pm.  Crater Lake clears 32 miles of road with 6 guys, Grand Teton 145 miles with two crews of 6-7.

Compared to HR, when 6 guys keep the road open 9-dusk, except when it there is "winter conditions" and it opens late, and they can't sand in the afternoon because they go home.

I called those parks and all the others on the winter access list on the other thread to find out costs.  None of those other parks have any idea how much it costs, they just do it because its the right thing to do.

Votski unfortunately the opening the road to the tunnels or 3rd peak ended along time ago.  Maybe the last millenium, I think early 1990's.  If they would go back to the gates at 3rd peak or even better the "slot" depending on conditions that would be a huge win.  Even double parking.  But apparently its all or nothing-not enough turn around space they say.  No word on how they were able to turn around for all the years before when it operated that way.

Not sure about a $1,000,000 bridge at staircase, but they also have one planned for Crystal Creek on the Appleton Pass trail to make it passable for stock.  Again if funding decisions are now based on visitor numbers, how many stock users in ONP?  Way less than 10,000 per year. 

A favorite line across 3 or more local ONP administrations is "Well, you can't really compare parks, each one is unique."  They use this when I bring up the fact that other parks are able to keep their roads open.

But what about Olympic's uniqueness such as: one of two with a ski area; no other reasonable access to snow for 4+ hours; skiing predates the park-Deer Park was one of the first ski areas in North America; 3 parks in 1  aspect (except in the winter, I guess) etc?  It seems like those are unique aspects that would work in favor of winter access.

As a broader criticism of the NPS the only way to get ahead in NPS management is to move to a new billet in a new park every 3-5 years.  But at each post apparently you are supposed to forget what you learned at the last park?  Neither one of those things make any sense from a management perspective IMO.

Not sure about a $1,000,000 bridge at staircase...

I don't think construction has begun, but funding it was listed as one of the recently retired superintendent's proudest accomplishments:    :
blog.thenewstribune.com/adventure/2012/0...-to-retire-in-march/

this sadly seems to be a losing battle when the feds demand cuts of parks $$$
if a skier was in office we might have had a chance but change is coming.
sorry
bobby

As a broader criticism of the NPS the only way to get ahead in NPS management is to move to a new billet in a new park every 3-5 years.  But at each post apparently you are supposed to forget what you learned at the last park?  Neither one of those things make any sense from a management perspective IMO.

NPS superintendents and other managers have 'safety' as a critical element in their annual performance evaluations.  Basically, the more SARs and auto accidents, the lower their chances of transfer/promotion.  No wonder public access in winter is such a low priority for the National Parks.   

Thanks for commiserating with me on this the last week gang.  Gonna make another run at the ridge tomorrow with Marco and anyone else who's up for it.  We'll see - it is a Wed. and the road was closed today - on second thought, maybe you should just go to Crystal or Baker and save the bitterness and disappointment for me. 

Have you thought about making Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests to the NPS for any information that you want regarding cost allocations and funding decisions, particularly compared to other parks? Get the information, post it on the internet. Make the public who uses the park aware of how the park is being managed (because both the park and local media is not going to do this for you).

Road has been closed all week ("Heavy snow" and "as a precaution"). Two blower plows died, one last week, second one yesterday.  Got it fixed by 2 pm Friday, quit for the day (shift over). 

Road Closed on Saturday for sure. 

EDIT:  I should add that this weekend is strapless weekend at the ski area, which has been growing by leaps and bounds, attracting people from all over to enjoy our old school area and the backcountry as well.  Almost to a person, everyone that comes loves the place and of course spreads the word. But...only when the road is open. So it seems like once, just once, they could put in a little OT, or even bring in the second shift to make it happen.

Hurricane Ridge NPS‏@HRWinterAccess

Road will be closed today. Stay tuned for more news as it becomes available.

9h Hurricane Ridge NPS‏@HRWinterAccess

Rd crew switching 1 working plow head to plow w the working engine today. Probably another 10" new snow last 24 hrs w/ mod. winds.

Hurricane Ridge NPS‏@HRWinterAccessReply

The 2nd of 2 rotary plows died yesterday morning. Engine on the 1st died a week ago. The plow head on the 2nd was spewing black smoke...

Of course they quit for the day - They put in their eight hours! On a happier note, I was in Utah's Little Cottonwood Canyon all week and skied pow 4 outta 4 days- a record never to be eclipsed at the ridge!

Total possible days Dec 1- April 9: 131
Closed: 29 days which is 22%
Later than 9 am openings: 39  (9am is already so ridiculously late, but that is what they schedule)
11 days with early closure, 3 of which were on time openings

Total late or closed: 52% (29+3=68/131=52%)

81 days with no new snow; 67 days less than 0.10" of precipitation; 46 days with no precipitation; 64 days of greater than 0.10" precip.  (These numbers aren't the same partly because it rains some days, but also because the only new snow counting mechanism is comparing one day to the next, but sometimes the snow settles so even though it snows, the total on the ground doesn't change.  For example, the total new snowfall is 230 inches, which is probably quite underestimated given the amount of snow on the ground.  Total precip is 30.63 inches, which would indicate about 300" of snowfall assuming 10% density.)  Either way, that is ~50% of the days.

In other words, if it snows at all the road is late or closed

If new snow is greater than 0, the average opening time is 10:02.

Average snowfall on closed days: 3.93"
Average wind on closed days: 20 mph (This is the highest average wind speed for the day based on NWAC data)
Average wind on open days: 14 mph

The weather data is a little skewed because NWAC records each day starting 5am, so often the bad weather is on the day or night before the closure. 

I remember when the Staircase bridge came down during the big snow year in 99, the ranger station was staffed that winter.  One man and a snowshovel  would have saved that million dollar bridge.   It's not exactly a long walk to get there.  I imagine the new bridge will suffer the same fate.

This is a great thread! Way to hold their feet to the fire!

Funny thing about the Park Service: if you address a comment to the superintendent, it will almost always get read by the superintendent. If you write to the common informational email address, it will be read by J.Q. Ranger.

I'd recommend addressing all correspondence ATTN Superintendent. The current superintendent's former post was Big Cypress in southern Florida, so one might expect a lack of enthusiasm for winter recreation.

I imagine if everyone posting on the Occupy Hurricane Ridge page sent a email or letter to the SUPT, there would be a far more productive response than if the SUPT became aware of the issue through her Rangers arresting a group of protesters.

Or put in an Freedom of Information Act request to see the itemized budget of the roads department, and compare that to the other roads you listed. The park is obligated by law to respond to any FOIA request within 2 weeks, and they take that seriously.

P.S. You know you live in Washington when people equate ski access with a movement pushing for livable wages, universal healthcare, and social justice

Here are a couple videos that were entered in the Videolympics contest in Port Angeles yesterday that show a little local frustration with the road


www.facebook.com/photo.php?v=342944615773458

Looks glum for seven day access next winter at Hurricane Ridge. The City et al made a presentation to Bruce Shaeffer the man that controls the money for the NPS over a month ago. Although he stated the presentation was "impressive" he said he would get back shortly and it has been over a month with no word. Last couple of years we faced a deadline of mid August to give ONP enough time to hire, so it doesn't look good.

Lots of info and continued updates at www.freehurricaneridge.blogspot.com

Doesn't look like the road will be open weekdays this year

www.komonews.com/news/local/Hurricane-Ri...kdays-174624331.html

ONP put our their winter season presser today.  Notable is this:

"Three members of the park’s nine-person road crew will change their duty schedules this week and work full-time on maintaining weekend access to Hurricane Ridge.

Of the remaining six crew members, one is a mechanic, charged with servicing and maintaining the park’s fleet of trucks and heavy equipment and three are tasked with keeping roads cleared and maintained along the park’s northern and eastern edges including Sol Duc, Lake Crescent, Elwha and Staircase.  The remaining two road crew members are stationed in Quinault to keep the Quinault, Queets and Hoh Rain Forest roads clear and passable."

Three road crew, three LEO = $450,000 for four months?  Fuel is <$50,000 of the cost.

During the seven day trial, they hired four more guys. Meanwhile, Staircase, Elwha, and Sol Duc, were closed all winter. An anomaly you say?  Sol Duc has always closed in the winter... (GMP: Seasonal road access to Sol Duc would be retained, but access season could be adjusted depending on weather...)  The Olympic HS side of the Elwha always closes with snow, often for months.   I have never seen them plow whiskey bend either.  Lake Crescent is totally maintained by WSDOT or the County.

A couple years ago I asked:
Me: Why can't the road crew save time and money by plowing the road only when it snows (or drifts), which is less than 50% of the total days? That is the way that most other road crews operate.
ONP: if I applied this concept to a receptionist answering the phones, sure I would be able to save allot of money, but it would be
incredibly hard to manage a program which only has staff on to answer the phone when the phone is going to ring.

Reality: With 7 people there are more than enough to spread the hours to clear the road when it needs it, and do other work other times.

The whole program is ridiculous, and their lame excuses just make it worse.