Car in Paradise lot all week

There has been a car getting plowed in at the main (non-overnight) Paradise lot all week.

I've seen this before, but it always coincides with news of a SAR/missing people.

Anyone know what's up/heard anything?



PS- Given the $125 ticket they are nastily handing out to injured people a few minutes late to the gate, I'd hate to be on the receiving end of the fat citation the MORA LEs must be chomping at the bit to slap on this car owner...

There are some snow covered AAI vans at the east end of the lot; must be some sort of class going on.

In recent years, SARs have often not been publicized until after the fact.   I think it's fairly common for overnighters to miss the designated area off-cam near the Inn and just park in the way of the plows in the main lot. 

The 'View E from VC' cam has not updated in several days; Longmire was also down, but is working again.

It's been a decade now, I'm curious how long the several Paradise cam web addresses will refer to the "new" visitor center    :

I had noticed that car getting snowed in all week, too. A couple days ago I decided to check how long it had been there, since I have a script which saves a selection of useful webcam images throughout the Cascades every 10 minutes. The car and its party arrived after 5pm on Sunday, which was very strange timing -- even if they were planning to camp overnight.

(click any image to see full-size 1920x1080 version)

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The car stayed there all week, getting buried by about 2 ft of new snow, as seen Friday morning:

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The car's party returned around 1:30pm Friday, to start digging it out, and they were gone within 20 minutes.

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A guide service van also appeared around the same time, so maybe the car's party was associated with that winter seminar (although obviously not riding in the van):

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Parking lot all empty and snowing lightly by just before 5pm Friday:

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They are not associated with a guide service. Just following the guides down from Muir.

That's not the designated overnight parking area. I wonder if they got a ticket for parking in a location that made plowing a bit more work -- or wash the snow pushed around their car enough of a reminder to look at the map next time.

www.nps.gov/mora/planyourvisit/upload/Wi...mping-Nov13-Wmap.pdf

AFAIK There isn't "number of days" limitation of winter camping permits at Mt Rainer -- I suppose one could get two week permit and get in lots of turns without worrying about gate opening times -- if fact delayed gate opening delays on days with lots of new snow would be something to enjoy!