White River Rd to Campground

I just checked the road conditions for MRNP.


White River Rd to Campground
Scheduled opening May 19.


Anybody have any idea how likely this opening will be?
-Gus

This is a full week earlier than "usual". And its a decent snow year. So something does not quite compute. However I am very hopeful they do open; seems like summerland or the usual interglacier could be really good with potentially partially skiable conditions up to glacier basin. I wonder if the campground is supposed to be functional?

It seems likely that the NPS will not open the road to White River until 410 is open over Chinook Pass.  I understand that SR 123 (Cayuse) is likely to remain closed until at least July 4th pending major road repair in the vicinity of the tunnel between 410 and Ohanapecosh due to a major slide this winter.  Until there is somewhere to go, it seems unlikely that they would open 410 just to provide access to the White River Road.

There was an earlier TAY poster who had good 410 highway clearing information, so hopefully they will chime in with the latest.

There should be no problem biking 410 to White River and on into the campground right now.

I have the same reservations that J.P. has about the opening.
One more week and they are planning to have Chinook pass open.
Might be oversight by the Park on syncronizing planned opening dates.
Isn't there a gate at the Mather Parking area adjacent to Dry Creek/WR road if they want to resrict traffic to that part of the park just before Big Bertha?

Usually, they open a portion of the WR campground on Memorial Weekend.

This current season I was fortunate enough to be in with the Mount Raineer/Crystal boundries rangers and traveled up and down the road quite a bit during the winter . WSDOT plows the road for the MRNP rangers on one lane up to the White River Campground junction during the WHOLE season so that they can survey the area and count tracks the week before the final weekend at Crystal we drove about a quarter mile from the 123 junction which had a 20 foot base and at that time they had plowed out to the rangers station for the white river campground SO I would imagine that the access to the white river has been plowed out for a while and I the snow before big bertha is completly gone
but more importantly 410 should open memorial day weekend

Hey guys,
Thanks for the great discussion.

Here's the link for the WSDOT, but it didn't have much info on the status of when it would open.
www.wsdot.wa.gov/traffic/passes/passinformation.aspx#chinook

I'm thinking I'll just have to call the park on Friday to find out if they opened it or not.
-Gus