Changes at Mt Rainier -- road closed Tues, Weds

Business as usual m.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2013/...es-taxpayers/309448/

More business as usual:  www.mcclatchydc.com/2013/12/13/211577/sk...ts-park-service.html

More business as usual:  www.mcclatchydc.com/2013/12/13/211577/sk...ts-park-service.html

Here's a comment by the ski-touring concession applicant in my previous link:

"I’m writing in hopes that common sense is used by NPS’s concessions division...  I run a small guide company, Eco Tour Adventures, that operates in Grand Teton National Park and my case may provide a vivid example of why NPS has had some of its problems with its concession operations.

...NPS recently appointed a new head of its Commercial Services division, Ben Erichsen. NPS’s Commercial Service’s division is the part of NPS that handles its concession operations. I assume that Mr. Erichsen has been appointed in part to address and correct NPS’s notorious historical problem of not being able to issue timely Prospectuses under the 1998 Concessions Act, and that NPS and Mr. Erichsen are currently evaluating why NPS has had this difficulty and how it can be more efficient going forward under his direction. NPS often complains of this chronic problem in its annual reports to the Concessions Management Advisory Board.

In my case, NPS put in a tremendous amount of work in preparing and issuing a Prospectus and then completing an extensive evaluation. This lengthy process resulted in NPS finding that my proposals were the best ones it received. Yet, NPS appears to be poised to throw all that work (and expense) and start over. After completing its review of all the proposals in response to its Prospectus, NPS told me that my proposals were definitely the best ones it received, but that, unfortunately, NPS was required under the law to give its incumbent concessioners the chance to match all of Eco Tour’s better terms. However, I told NPS that the law did not require them to do this and, when NPS continued to insist that the law did require this outcome, I brought the matter before a federal judge who formally ruled that NPS should not give the contracts to the incumbents instead of us.

Yet, despite this ruling and clarification of the law, incredibly, rather than simply award the contracts to the best offeror, me, NPS apparently is instead going to throw out all this work and prepare and issue an entirely new Prospectus. Especially given NPS’s severe budget reductions and high maintenance backlog, which NPS frequently points out when it complains of Congress giving it insufficient funds to do its job, one is only left to wonder why NPS would ever make a decision to unnecessarily waste government money by throwing out its perfectly good process and redoing an existing Prospectus and evaluation? I have not received any explanation from NPS as to why it would do this..."

www.nationalparkstraveler.com/2014/01/co...ark-concessions24457

Considering all the concession monkey-business at Rainier through the years, it's starting to look like integrity is all too often the inverse of pay grade in the top-heavy NPS:

bangordailynews.com/2014/01/20/news/hanc...st-in-federal-court/

Unbelievable (if you are new to the issue)!!

MRNP tweets high avy danger today, thus keeping the road closed, when in fact the NWAC states moderate to considerable-
www.nwac.us/avalanche-forecast/current/c...almie-to-white-pass/

With the upcoming weather systems coming in I don't expect the road to be open at all this week…how much longer do we tolerate this? Please tell me what I can do to create awareness/uproar about this blatant mismanagement...

Six NPS vehicles + a plow waiting for the avy danger to subside...

MRNP tweets high avy danger today, thus keeping the road closed, when in fact the NWAC states moderate to considerable-
www.nwac.us/avalanche-forecast/current/c...almie-to-white-pass/

MRNP management seems so inconsistent about avalanche hazard, that it often seems like a convenient excuse, if not outright ignorance. 

For just one example, the normally windward 'Narada Face' just above the falls is signed with a recommended alternate route.  Although avalanches certainly occur here occasionaly, the obvious open area is mostly the result of decades of road building and quarrying.  There have been injury falls traversing this icy slope, but never an avalanche injury to my knowledge, unlike the recommended marked bypass, where a showshoer was buried and killed in the 70's.

For the past couple winters, the Pisten-Bully has been used to pack the start of the road to Fourth Crossing and the beginning of the trail to Edith Basin.  I was told this was to provide walking opportunities for visitors.  So we have backcountry travelers warned away from one slope for questionable reasons, while totally unprepared pilgrims are led to the top of the real normally-lee avalanche slopes closest to Paradise.   ???

If current management had ever seen avy debris from Cushman Crest piled 30 feet deep at that picturesque and popular icicle cascade at Christine Falls, they might not plow those congested  turnouts that are also a pedestrian accident waiting to happen.