Mid week Hurricane Ridge closure next winter!

I first heard about the pending midweek hurricane ridge closure from this TAY post


www.turns-all-year.com/skiing_snowboardi...ex.php?topic=23739.0

recieved this update from my email inquiry:

Thanks for your concern. The road to Hurricane Ridge will remain open daily (weather permitting) for the rest of this winter. Next winter, however, we will not be able to keep the road open all week. Currently, Hurricane Ridge has been averaging as few as 12 visitors on a week day, which does not begin to cover the cost keeping the road open. Please note, too, that the ski operation is run by volunteers and only runs on weekends; thus, the poma lift does not run during the week under any circumstances.

Believe me that everyone at the park wants to Hurricane Ridge road to stay open as much as, if not more than, you do. But it is a money-losing situation as it is, and we are facing even deeper budget cuts this year. However, we hope to be able to keep the road open as much as four days a week nest winter.

Thanks for writing,
Olympic National Park Visitor Center
3002 Mount Angeles Road
Port Angeles, WA 98362

now might be a good time hurricane frequent fliers to make our voices heard!

you can send emails here:
www.nps.gov/PWR/sendmail.htm?o=%3B1%28G%...0A&r=/olym/index.htm

Thanks for posting this and starting the discussion again. Which park employee sent this? Barb?

I've got two days up at the ridge midweek this winter and have been turned away an additional 4 days. Believe me - I want the road open more that they do.

"Believe me that everyone at the park wants to Hurricane Ridge road to stay open as much as, if not more than, you do."

If this statement were true they'd have the plow drivers out there doing their job when the snow starts to fly like WSDOT does. Currently the plows don't go up until 7am - it's impossible to plow 20" of snow off that road in 2 hours. They won't let cars up until both directions have been plowed and sanded...how about this - send up a plow and a sander at the same time and have another truck up in the lot plowing out two dozen parking spots. They don't need to plow out the ENTIRE lot on a Tuesday!

The community has poured 150K into this the last two winters and the park is wasting this opportunity. Here's who I've been emailing. Barb_Maynes@nps.gov

Keep on it.

Hi Steve O,
The email sent to me was unsigned so dont know who did the answering. I will try to inquire in person tommorow if they get the road open. Can you give a breif history of the 150K community effort?

I attended a meeting between City and Park officials Monday 2/13.  The road data for the season was presented to the city at the mid-point of the season.  Mayor Kidd and others are going to DC after the season to make the argument for continued 7 day a week access.  The primary target is Bruce Shaffer, the NPS comptroller.

Your letters will be more effective being sent to Mayor Kidd especially if they can be used to show people in Washington DC the interest in access.  The real pull will be with Congressmen Dicks and Inslee, and Senators Cantwell and Murray.

The reply you received is premature at best.  Also, the quote "averaging as few as 12" is informative because 12 is actually the lowest number of cars counted, which was 2/9 during the rainstorm.  The Monday - Thursday average is 36.  Keep in mind that is cars, not visitors.  I think they use 2.8 visitors per car for their visitor stats, so that is 100 people per day, average.

Local ONP managements "criteria for success" is 45% of weekend visits.  Apparently that is from the five year average, which equals 98 vehicles per day.  When asked what that was based on the answer I recieved was "that is what we decided."  This after at least a dozen meetings between local officials and the park to determine what metrics should be used. 

Is this 45% metric going to be used for all ONP management decisions?  I'll bet the visitor center gets less than 45% of its visits during the week.  Are they going to shut that down also?  Why not whole sections of the park that don't get 45% of the visits as the more popular areas? Why not whole parks that don't get 45% of the more popular parks?

Meanwhile, the park has on their management page a study that states the economic impact of visits to ONP.  www.friendsonp.org/images/econ_of_olympicnp.pdf Table 8.  It includes a table that can be used to calculate the economic impact of additonal visits to the park, such as those added by weekday visits.

The study, updated from 2000 using the CPI, shows that one visitor has an $85 total economic impact on the community, so the 100 visitors on the average weekday equals $8,500.

ONP states the total cost to open the Ridge is $750,000; $425,000 for Friday-Sunday and an additional $325,000 for Monday- Thursday.  I'm assuming that is how they arrived at 45%.  Those numbers include plowing, law enforcement, interpretation, and cleaning the lodge.  I haven't seen a breakdown on each category.

Local fundraising chipped in $75,000 for each of the past two years.

Some of the cost is in salary that they have to pay anyway for full-time year round rangers and road crew.  I beleive they hired two additional seasonal rangers and 4 road crew to operate seven days a week, for a total of 5 rangers and 8 road crew.