Mt Rainier NP Community Meetings next week

Should I bring bolt cutters?

Just spit coffee on my monitor!

I attended the meeting last year, and gave Randy the benefit of the doubt. He failed. I try for some answers from him on Monday and will let the board know what I hear.

I attended the meeting on Monday in Enumclaw. Randy King, Supt. was a bit fried from spending all day meeting with family members of those who died on Liberty Ridge. Not a pleasant part of the job for sure.

Not a lot of big news to report. Randy King stated [paraphrased from memory] "I don't know if we can keep the road (Longmire to Paradise) open during the week for winter recreation in the future. We need to align our expenditures with what provides the greatest benefit to the greatest number of visitors." In other words, keeping the road open during the week may not continue in the future. Being that this meeting was in Enumclaw, a lot of access discussion centered on opening Sunrise earlier. Access to the park is very big issue to the gateway communities. I am sure the west side gateway communities will have some input on the Paradise road. The lack of road opening this year was more due to staffing issues (quit, sick) than budget issues; according to Randy.

Randy did state the park has geologists assessing the west side road to see if the 20 year old has stabilized sufficiently to rebuild the one lane section; and thus open the road again. This would be great in my opinion.

Thanks for posting back about the meeting. As for what he said, that's..just...ARGH. Realistically, WTF else is there to do but go to Paradise for the public in the winter? And if the issue is more staffing than budgetary, how does he make the leap to a "weekends only" National Park?? >