New Record for Mt. Rainier?

Looking at the webcam and telemetry it seems like its snowing pretty good.  Based on the total snow depth there's about 7 inches of new snow already.  Hmmm.

I know there's no end of criticism for MORA and ONP but I'm curious to find out what the feelings towards N Cascades NP are?  I never see anything here about them.  I thought I read somewhere they just got a new superintendent too.  My personal feeling is that it's a way better park than MORA or ONP.  But that is just based on scenery/activity quality.  Might be better in a different thread.

The Park was closed, but the MTTA was open and I did ski patrol in this terrifying (to Park LEOs) weather; nice heavy snowfall, really beautiful, just a nice breeze.

As far as North Cascade Park goes: are they relevant to anything? The State plows the road. I've skied there a lot in the past and I never saw a Park employee. So, I think they must be a model Park--they keep the h*ll out of the way! When hiking the east side of NC hwy, we encountered FS rangers on the FS trails but never a NPS ranger on a NPS trail.

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!

In some ways this is about meeting expectations.  ONP and MORA set expectations with a history of road plowing, and now they can't don't meet the expectations that they created.

Fixed it for you.

I keep trying to ignore this stuff because it drives me batshit crazy. From the Uberuaga real estate deal, to the 2006 'closure' that only affected the public, to the climbing ranger fireworks incident at the summit, to this winter closure.

Now they are whining about getting their budget cut. Based on what this one park is delivering, 30% less to 30% less visitors, a 5% budget cut seems in order to me.

Though I don't know a ton about the operations at NOCA and Mt. Baker, I do know that they get by with MUCH less staff. I believe Baker had ONE climbing ranger last summer.

Between the apparent accountability vaccum and greatly reduced access this winter, I've lost faith in the current management.

The incredible pattern continues....

Chang your weekend plans folks

truely pitiful ! This ain't your father's or grandfather's park. Your gandma would be pissed too.

I see on the webcams that the much ballyhooed shortage of plow operators is not impacting plowing operations today. So why are we paying to plow when the road is closed??