HURRICANE RIDGE WEEKDAYS?

A couple additional good points can be found at:  www.kitsapsun.com/news/2010/mar/29/seabu...keeping-the-ridge-a/
1)  Many weekdays don't require plowing and the Park staff are using the closed road.
2)  The cost (and pollution) of weekday plowing might be partly offset by less weekend plowing.

Seems like it could facilitate earlier weekend openings as well.

Seabury's article was in the Peninsula Daily News today as well.

For the past two years I have been tracking days that the road could open with no new plowing.  In other words, the road was in the same condition during the week as it was left Sunday night.  If ANY snow fell during the week, or if it was windier than 30 mph, or high avalanche danger, I do not count the rest of the week.  Easy to do using the SNOTEL site.

Last year, there were over 60 days that the road could have been open with no additional plowing, November-April.  So far this year there have been about 30.

Having the option to close the road at Switchback or Sunrise would add more days at minimal cost.

Both the City and County have repeatedly offered to cooperate with the Park with plowing.  The response has been that would be illegal, despite National NPS policy directive to “seek opportunities for cooperative management agreements with state or local agencies that will allow for more effective and efficient management of the parks.”

Having the option to close the road at Switchback or Sunrise would add more days at minimal cost.

Partial openings used to be SOP at Rainier when I was a winter volly back in the 70's.  That policy also helped with earlier daily gate openings then, despite record snows. The exception was on weekends or holidays where the waiting vehicles exceeded the parking capacity of the turnouts.  Even in that case, we would eventually fill the old VC lot while the upper lot was being plowed.

It's more work for the NPS for sure.  Somebody has to count & communicate the number of vehicles and know how many to let up as each stage is finished.  Somebody has to keep folks from blocking the road at the closure.  Everyone using the road administratively has to get in & out of their vehicle twice to move & replace the temporary barricade.

I think this policy could work at Rainier with its numerous turnouts, some fairly large.  Hurricane Ridge partial openings seem unlikely to me because the turnouts mentioned by Stormking are so small, probably only about a dozen vehicles each.  The one at the Switchback Trail is also in a large avalanche runout.

I just learned that STARTING THIS WEEK, the Hurricane Ridge road will be 7 days a week as weather and staffing allow. This is a significant difference from the arrangement in years past, where the road was still only open Friday, Saturday, and Sunday during April.

Of course, right now (Friday) there is a major winter storm, and the road is closed. But it sounds like even if it storms all weekend, they will work to plow the road on Monday, and it could stay open the rest of the week, as long as there isn't another big storm. (How big is big, I don't know).

Obviously, call the number at 565-3131 to be sure on a given day, but from what I learned today, this is a new and better policy.

We will see how it pans out, but one thing that will help is getting more people up there.

I'd like to compliment Stormking for the research effort and ONP management for being receptive to ideas from the public!  Perhaps Rainier's management will take note and consider using some of their huge budget to open Sunrise before the snow melts?  Or open the Westside Road to public vehicles as well as those of the NPS...

Not to minimize the snowplow contribution, but if Olympic is that worried about their pollution perhaps they "should be paying attention" to their reliance on helicopters and chainsaws in one of our finest wildernesses?

They must be listening to you Gary, they started plowing Paradise Valley Road yesterday and will probably have it cleared by mid-April (of no use to skiers, snowshoers, or even hikers) and then have it available to vehicles one month later :

Apparently there's not enough cash to continue this Spring's experiment with weekday openings:
www.peninsuladailynews.com/article/20100509/news/305099987
Since they have 3/4 of the needed money, maybe they could just plow it 3/4 of the way?