Changes at Mt Rainier -- road closed Tues, Weds

At 11:30 a.m., the webcams at Paradise showed a few inches of new snow had fallen overnight and in the early morning and a partly cloudy/partly blue ski prevailed with visibility clear to Mazama Ridge. The Mt. Rainier Recreational Forecast called for clearing skies and a possibility of snowshowers with 1 inch of new possible.


Mt. Rainier tweeted shortly after 11 a.m.: "Road from Longmire to Paradise will not open today due to heavy and continuing snowfall. ldo"

What does this denial of reality with concurrent denial of services mean? That any new snow is "heavy and continuing" and the road will not open?

As of 12:40 p.m., there was no hint of plows at Paradise. Does this mean a late (or no) opening tomorrow.

Enquiring minds want to know, but it appears there is no one trustworthy enough to ask.

Andrew you are completely right. This is getting very hard to take. It is borderline arrogance, if not already, on their part.

The NPS hired three new road crew/snowplow drivers this fall. I wonder what they are doing with their time today.....


As of 12:52pm...

Glad to see that I'm not the only one frustrated with the delayed update on the road status today via both their phone recording and the twitter message. My wife and I were thinking about skiing there today- decided that Rainier was probably going to pull out a b.s. excuse not to open so we didn't head down, and for tomorrow we'll be touring elsewhere since we don't want to commit to Rainier when the decision to keep the gate closed can supposedly be done off made-up weather forecasts.

Rainier mgmt has really gotta change things...the status quo is ridiculous.

We learned about the closure when we arrived at 8:45 this morning. Lady at the gate said "we might not open today, due to short staff, we're down a plow". I said, you mean they're not even plowing? She replied (haughtily), "No, they've been at since 5:30".

I'm wondering why they couldn't have provided that info at 5:30 (and why they have no backup drivers, and why they start so late, etc.)? What am I missing here?

It is crystal clear at this point that the plan is to further restrict access each successive year until the road is closed for good. The current administration obviously, and for whatever reason, decided that winter access above Longmire is not to be had. This obviously does not pertain to all parks, as Denali has sought to increase access recently. This whole thing completely pisses me off.