Road to Paradise closed at least throught the 28th

So a half an hour ago the NPS first tweeted that the road would not be open due to continued storm clean-up. Ten minutes later it was tweeted that lack of staffing was the reason. They have stated that when the road opens is when they will build the sledding run. Whittakers Motel has just tweeted asking if they will be working on the sledding run today since there is no public around. I wish more people would get involved in demanding accountability from this shit show entity of the NPS....

Road to Paradise would not open due to storm cleanup but the road would be open to Cougar Rock; next tweet said the gate would remain closed at Longmire--precluding travel to Cougar Rock--due to lack of staffing.

Nobody but a few old farts who live in the vicinity really cares. It wasn't going to be a free day today.

Sounds like the road is opening soon, according to this Seattle Times article: www.seattletimes.com/life/travel/rainier...lay-by-this-weekend/

The article links to this thread.

I diagonally strode the park's Westside Road today about four miles out to Fish Creek.  I was astonished to see a large tracked excavator parked half-buried in snow at the 'Dry Creek' summer gate / parking area.  This is probably the largest avalanche path in the park that reaches a road.  I have seen large logs and debris piled tens of feet high exactly at the machine's location on numerous occasions over the years.[img width=800]http://PASTEimageURLhere[/img]

So the next time the park puts out another press release pleading poverty, while demonstrating almost no financial transparency  www.schundler.net/FOIAfailing.pdf , remember how little they seem to care about our property and how they take our tax dollars for granted.  I'm guessing a shovel like that goes for at least $100,000?

The annual 'Best Places to Work' report is out.  The NPS continues its decade-long slide in management category scores and its own employees now rank it 259th out of 320 federal agencies surveyed:
www.nationalparkstraveler.com/2015/12/na...k-federal-government
bestplacestowork.org/BPTW/rankings/detail/IN10

This morning I woke up thinking about this tractor, anybody been out that way?