Changes at Mt Rainier -- road closed Tues, Weds

here it is

...altho 2009 visitation seems low, too, and I can't recall why.

A big storm caused serious road damage on Glacier Hill early in that year. About a hundred feet of one lane slid away along the line of the buried utilities, apparently poorly backfilled.  All the park's plows and vehicles continued to use the road.  Park press releases at the time at first suggested Paradise would have to remain closed for the winter, then that it could only be open weekends with flaggers.  After a few weeks, they put up jersey barriers with stop signs at each end and resumed daily openings.  The road remained that way until it was finally repaired the following summer. 

It is quite clear that weekday closures of Paradise have been a management objective for years.  Don't confuse this episode with what I call 'The Big Lie' of 2006-07; more on that later...

Goodbye Paradise?   1-5-2009
www.turns-all-year.com/skiing_snowboardi...ex.php?topic=11785.0

Nisqually road to Paradise closed, 01-12-2009
www.turns-all-year.com/skiing_snowboardi...ex.php?topic=11868.0

Mt. Rainier NP achieves major milestone  January 2009
www.turns-all-year.com/skiing_snowboardi...ex.php?topic=11909.0

I'm a tech caveman, but it might be interesting if one of TAY's math wizards were to compare past monthly snowfall with monthly park visitor totals for say, November thru April of each year.  I'd expect to see an overall declining trend for winter visitation paralleling, but steeper than, the national NPS trend for three decades. Also some sort of correlation between the snowiest months (presumably the ones with the most closed days) and the months with fewest visitors.   

Rough visual analysis suggests that the park has managed to cut winter visitation (Jan-Mar) more or less 50% since its peak in 1989-1990; also suggests  that the winter visitor use/day that the Park used in its PR about reduced access might reflect the winter closure in 2007 and the amount of closed days last Jan for LE, trauma, and S&R and unusually severe weather/avalanche conditions in Jan/Feb last year, altho 2009 visitation seems low, too, and I can't recall why.

If someone can point me to the best resource for historical monthly snowfall totals/levels at Paradise, I can do some basic analysis.  My cursory search brought me to two sources, neither of which seemed ideal:
- www.climate.washington.edu/snowdepth/ - excellent graphs from NWAC data, but I couldn't find a way to get that data in chart form.
- www.wrcc.dri.edu/cgi-bin/cliMONtsnf.pl?wa6898 - from the Western Regional Climate Center, but there seem to be a lot of months with days of missing data, so I'm not sure how accurate it is.

Anywhere better to get this information?

If you can direct me to where to find overall NPS visitation stats (my cursory search only found by park/location), I can make those comparisons as well.

For now, here's a graph to make visualizing winter Paradise visitation stats easier.  I defined "winter" as November-April.  While there is a lot of variation from year to year, at least in the past few years number are lower than most previous years.  This could be for a lot of reasons, but if someone can direct me to some of the above data resources, we can at least see if a couple of variables might account for the local decrease (or not).

Good work, knitvt, thanks!  Perhaps what you need in terms of visitor stats is at:  irma.nps.gov/Stats/Reports/ReportList  

Looking at knitvt's fine graph, the large downspike for 2006-07 is the six-month closure of the entire park, of course.  The downspikes for the mid 90's might be explained by flooding closures?  water.weather.gov/ahps2/river.php?wfo=se...74&data%5B%5D=crests

FYI, from an email I received:

December 4, 2012


You are invited to attend one of our two upcoming community meetings to discuss this year’s winter operations at Mount Rainier National Park. Superintendent Randy King will provide a brief overview of winter park operations and be available for questions and answers afterwards. Each meeting is expected to last approximately one hour. These meetings will occur on the following dates, times and locations:

Tuesday, December 11th, Ashford Mountain Haus, 4:00 to 5:00 p.m.
(note: the Mountain Haus is located between Whittaker Mountaineering and Whittaker’s Bunkhouse in Ashford. It is the building that houses the Visitor Information center).

Wednesday, December 12, Enumclaw Library, 4:00 to 5:00 p.m.

Please forward this invitation on to others you feel might be interested in attending.

For more information please call Donna Rahier at 360-569-6501 or via e-mail - donna_rahier@nps.gov

--
Donna Rahier
Superintendent's Office
360-569-6501
donna_rahier@nps.gov