New Record for Mt. Rainier?

Why, I've been told by NPS  LEOs that it is park policy to leave it to beaver in the Wilderness--they are not supposed to provide things like marked snowshoe trails in the winter, people are supposed to take the risks.

....

Right-- but as you pointed out earlier in this thread -- Paradise and the immediate surrounding area is not in the wilderness -- and in fact there are marked snowshoe/ski trails connecting Paradise to Reflection Lakes and Narada Falls -- none of which is in wilderness areas.

The bulk of MORA's revenue in the winter and bulk of winter visitors comes from sledders coming up to use the sledding hill -- from the point of view of the people that visit the park in the greatest numbers -- having the park closed during periods of poor weather and poor sledding is OK.

In terms of the park "not being Disneyland" -- that's a joke right? -- after all this is the NPS used to perform "fire falls" in Yosemite LINK

Fancy!, looks expensive!

I love the tagline at the bottom: "Experience Your America" Yeah right!

NCNP is unique in that the highway is actually a National Recreation Area, and plowing the road is the state's responsibility, not the park's.

In some ways this is about meeting expectations.  ONP and MORA set expectations with a history of road plowing, and now they can't meet the expectations that they created.  NCNP never created that expectation in the first place - its hard to criticize what's never existed!

North Cascades is not that unique.  Many parks have cooperative agreements for road maintenance by other agencies, such as US 101 thru Olympic. Chinook and Cayuse Pass roads at Rainier are also cleared each Spring and maintained by the state of WA.  Clallam County offered to plow Hurricane Ridge for a fraction of ONP's claimed cost and were turned down.  FWIW, I'm pretty sure the Canadian mountain park's main roads are plowed by the Provincial highway departments rather than Parks Canada.  They do a tremendous job on a huge number of miles!

For winter users, I think the main difference is that NCNP doesn't lock the public out of plowed roads like Olympic and Rainier do.

Wonderful- parking lot is plowed and ready for......?? Oh right, it's closed today...

Right-- but as you pointed out earlier in this thread -- Paradise and the immediate surrounding area is not in the wilderness -- and in fact there are marked snowshoe/ski trails connecting Paradise to Reflection Lakes and Narada Falls -- none of which is in wilderness areas.]

Actually, almost all of the marked winter trail to Reflection Lake from Paradise Valley Road is within the Wilderness:

www.wilderness.net/map.cfm?xmin=-1357221...294&ymax=5941919.692

What's surprising to me is how much of the Paradise River headwaters are not...

I attended the public meeting in Enumclaw with Randy King. After the meeting I posted on this site that for the time being I would give Randy the benefit of the doubt; based on the closures of late that benefit has been recinded.

I sincerely hope Mr. King has a good explanation for this closure, although my gut feeling now is he's just another beaurocrat hell bent of screwing the public out of access of a resource he is paid to manage.