Closure notice received at MRNP Entrance Station

I think they are doing this beacuse in past years when the snow pack has been thin people have traveled a short distance from the parking lot, built a kicker and spent the whole day doing tricks in one spot. Then once the snow melts, that spot ends up with a lot of damage to meadow plants and flowers.<br><br>I'm hoping that we'll get a major dump soon and this will become illrelivant.

I think backcountry skiers would like to give the impression to others that they are different from snowmobilers in that the resource is treated with great respect.

<br>With all due respect Larry, I don't understand your comparison or what you are trying to imply. Backcountry skiing is inherently significantly less resource damaging then snowmobiling. In addition, anecdotally, in my experience backcountry skiers seem to be excellent stewards of the environment. <br><br>Does MRNP have any factual basis to claim skiers cause disproportional resource damage when the snowpack is low? Is this their sole reason for the closure? The last sentence of the first paragraph also states, "Skiers and snowboarders run the risk of injury due to the many rocks and trees protruding through the snow."<br>

I think they are doing this beacuse in past years when the snow pack has been thin people have traveled a short distance from the parking lot, built a kicker and spent the whole day doing tricks in one spot.  Then once the snow melts, that spot ends up with a lot of damage to meadow plants and flowers.<br>

<br><br>Where I come from they call those "WEEDS".  I guess 20' of snow won't hurt the plants, but skiing on thin snow does?  <br><br>I'm just being a bit sarcastic here, but I sure get tired of the park nazi's on Chinook Pass. It used to be a fun place to hike and ride 10+ years ago.  Now its a non-stop hassle by the park patrol......

This is a reasonably tricky issue, and I think Larry_R's point is quite an interesting one. I think you could find science that person for person BC skiers do a lot less (local) damage to environment than bilers, even beyond the 2-stroke oil+carbon issue. If for no other reason than that we're covering 10% of the ground, and are (mostly) making our micro-navigation choices at more reasonable speeds. But that doesn't mean BC skiers shouldn't think about these issues. As a parallel, mountain biking orgs, while obviously causing less resource damage than trail bikes or horses, have had to show real progress on taking a corrective stance on resource wear issues to avoid bikes being chucked off public land in many cases whenever user conflicts have arisen. <br>Think of it this way. How many times have you accidentally sawed off a growing fir top in less than 36 inch cover? Multiply that by the (growing) number of skiers using the same hill. Concentrate it to a single terrain unit, as has pretty obviously been the case this November while we are mostly waiting for other destinations to fill in. I've been up there twice in last 30 days and I know I've impacted a few individual plants despite making efforts to be careful.<br>I can't think of a good solution to this since it is really obvious that you can't just cordon off a ski run here and expect people to respect it, there are too many directions that people are trying to go, and the lure of untracked snow 'beyond the ropes' will dash any such efforts.<br>However, that said, I have seen/heard of many cases where MNRP gets reactionary about resources or access without having much data or science. Based on my biased obserations, if they really want to help out the Paradise meadows, they need to get more serious about aggressively nailing (ticket$!) people who go off trail in the summer. Or big (sometimes guided!) groups who get off an acceptablly low impact Muir route in spring/summer and thrash the cryptosoil above Pebble Creek, or on other sides of mountain like at Spray Park. Et cetera. Either that or show me the results of some actual study about resource damage to ground under low snow pack and make be a believer in the science, and dispel the historical impression I have that MNRP will shut the gate first, ask questions later.

I often clip  saplings or brush while skiing, especially during low snow conditions.  The damage is obvious: ski edges scraping bark, broken branches, etc.  It's not much of a cognitive strain to imagine that vast numbers of skiers, sledders, hikers and snowshoers might, if concentrated in a limited area, cause real and enuring damage to the natural vegetation under such conditions.  Anybody unable to see how this might be true?<br><br>So...what's the situation at Paradise this time of year?  Anyone notice vast numbers of skiers?  Snowshoers?  Dayhikers?  Are there especially high concentrations of all of the above in the meadows right above the parking lot?  Those shrubs with the tattered branches all pummeled and crushed and scraped bare of bark: how do you suppose they got that way?  Does this seem like a good thing?  (Another way of asking: are these plants worthless "weeds," or are they an integral part of the local successional ecology, interwoven with all else that we enjoy...like, say, large and small mammals, wildflowers, groves of mountain hemlock, meltwater streams?)<br><br>I am not taking some sort of purist moral stand here.  I ski backcountry too, occasionally at Paradise.  I'm just suggesting that as backcountry recreationalists who claim an appreciation of the natural world we might as well begin by admiting that our recreation has real effects on that world, and that these are often not at all benign.  If we want to take advantage of, say, the fact that the National Park Service keeps the Paradise road plowed and sanded all winter, we're going to have to suffer a few rules and regulations related to the presence of the crowds.  There is no mystery to this. Those who don't like rules might consider heading elsewhere.  The first clue to the absence of rules will be the parallel absence of plowed roads, giant parking lots, and uniformed law enforcement personnel.<br><br>Note that the Park Service has had a policy forbidding snow sliding in low snow conditions (at Paradise) for quite a while now.  The notices may be new (I don't really know, since I'm seldom down there) but the policy is not.  I'm under the impression that this is common knowledge among those who ski there regularly, but perhaps it's not.<br><br>Edit to add: Yeah, what Wolfs said.

Note that the Park Service has had a policy forbidding snow sliding in low snow conditions for quite a while now.

<br>Does this (or will this soon) include closures to other areas of MRNP in spring/summer? Like say Sunrise, Spray park or Summerland?