Changes at Mt Rainier -- road closed Tues, Weds

Perhaps the 'staffing shortage' is because they're releasing fishers? www.nps.gov/mora/parknews/fisher-reintroduction.htm

Or just updating the late-gater list to be ready for today's online chat about fisher reintroduction:   
www.facebook.com/events/1480158168871252/
It seems pretty clear from the collective nivalphobia of the past few winters that most of the 160 MRNP year-round staff have never skied, and most of those who have aren't skilled in deep snow or tree skiing.  It would certainly give new dimension to the phrase 'powder pig' in the unlikely event it happens.    :

Sorry Gary--I have nothing to do with the openings, and neither do the fisher. And I ski.

Sorry Gary--I have nothing to do with the openings, and neither do the fisher.  And I ski.

And I actually saw you skiing! And we talked about fishers. LOL

I was curious so I did some counting.

The gate closures of the road to Paradise for this current winter season began November 2nd, 2013. Including today, that makes 137 days. Going back through the Park's Twitter feed, I noted every date that the road "would not open today" and that count resulted in 32 days so the road didn't open about 23% of the time since November 2nd.

Frankly, I thought the number would be a tad higher. Anyways, there it is..

I was curious so I did some counting.

The gate closures of the road to Paradise for this current winter season began November 2nd, 2013. Including today, that makes 137 days. Going back through the Park's Twitter feed, I noted every date that the road "would not open today" and that count resulted in 32 days so the road didn't open about 23% of the time since November 2nd.

Frankly, I thought the number would be a tad higher. Anyways, there it is..

Counting today, my daily log shows 35 closed days since Nov. 2, or 25%
There were ten days with opening delays more than an hour past nine AM and four days with early closures.   
There was no tweet on five of the open days and one of the closed days.
Two of the openings were on weekend days with a NWAC high avalanche warning.
I lost count of the posted photos of groovy sunsets that we were not allowed to watch in person.   

Thanks for adding your observations. Did you keep track of these numbers last winter? I wanted to look at this as well but didn't get around to it. Curious as to the change from last winter to the current season. I'm guessing there were more closures this winter but....

By this time in 2013, there had been 49 closed days; 37 in 2012.   I believe both years had significantly more snow than there has been this winter.

PM with email for .rtf files of the past three years.