Changes at Mt Rainier -- road closed Tues, Weds

Wise man, from Twitter at 7:30: The gate to Paradise at Longmire will be delayed this morning due to weather-related road conditions. - tks  With 13 inches of new in the last 24 hr and 5 ins more expected and a winter storm advisory, if they do open this morning it will belie much of their claims of the winter.

It opened.  But then, it was a weekend, and the last for the snow-play area.  They must have thought it was important.

Now that it's April anyone hear/know when, if ever, they plan to open the gate earlier than 9:00?

Now that it's April anyone hear/know when, if ever, they plan to open the gate earlier than 9:00?

I asked them via twitter (reply to their post about construction starting at 7 a.m.) what the hours will be; they deigned to reply. Nothing on the website.

Finally some good news from the park's Facebook page (posted April 8, 5:40pm) :

"Starting Thursday, the gate btw Longmire and Paradise will remain open 24 hours. Some overnight closures may still happen due to bad weather. And remember: spring storms can make road and weather conditions deteriorate quickly, so all vehicles must carry chains thru May 1."

Thanks Amar. That is sweet news.......finally!

Mount Rainier's former super-duper is making news again:

"Whether any other company bids on the [second float of a humongous visitor services] contract is yet to be seen. Regardless, the park will go ahead and pay Xanterra the $100 million when the new contract takes effect, whichever company lands it."

"Though the buy-down is aimed at preventing monopolies in concessions and improve services, the short-term impact at the Grand Canyon could be wide-ranging as roughly $75 million of the $100 million is being loaned the Grand Canyon by other parks across the country that will have to be repaid in about five-to-seven years. The money from those other, unspecified, parks came from unobligated funds they had from franchise fees they collected and which will eventually be needed for projects in their own parks."

"As I understand it, all of them will have enough revenues in FY15 to cover whatever projects they did have," explained Superintendent Uberuaga. "They just lost their savings account, unobligated money. The intent is for us to pay that back to each of the individual parks that the money was redirected from.”

"While Superintendent Uberuaga has been squirreling away some funds from franchise fees in recent years, that amounts only to about $25 million..."

www.nationalparkstraveler.com/2014/08/co...t-park-long-run25515

Can any of TAY's business-savvy folks explain to this poor hillbilly how this is not corporate welfare if Xanterra retains the contract they didn't re-bid on the first time?

I'd expect Rainier's "savings account" may get raided in this scheme and, durn it all, there just won't be enough money to do things that management hasn't really wanted to do anyway.    :