New non-motorised snoparks

Do you guys have any ideas for ideal locations for new non-motorized snoparks? Where would you like to see them? What would they allow you to do that you can't do now? How difficult / complicated would it be to put them in?

I am mostly focused on the washington cascades, but I would appreciate your thoughts on other locations as well.

IMO, and with experience of recreating in other mountain ranges, the Cascades are one of the hardest ranges to access. Topography, heavy snowfall, rain forest, etc. all contribute. This was the original reason I purchased a snowmobile. I got tired of being limited by the "same old spots", given a limited schedule of "time off" and limited weather windows.

The FS roads that lead to any elevation would require a major snow removal effort on par with the major highways they are near. I think major snow removal would be necessary for it to be useful for accessing an area without a motor. Motorized sno-parks are currently plowed only until the snowpack is sufficient to run a sled. The costs would be huge to provide non-motorized users a significant "assist" to an elevation with good skiing in the Cascades. Non-motorized sno-parks would best be suited to major road sides (passes) or East side approaches. But, I would be interested in hearing ideas as well...

Do you guys have any ideas for ideal locations for new non-motorized snoparks?  Where would you like to see them? What would they allow you to do that you can't do now? How difficult / complicated would it be to put them in?

How about Fryingpan Creek on the White River road in Rainier National Park?

In the 1950 and 1960s (when Cayuse Pass was plowed and open all winter) there was much better access to the White River region than there is today.

A snopark in this area would make accessible north-facing terrain between Cayuse Pass and Summerland that is currently out of practical range for most skiers, unless they use snowmobiles.

Compared to most roads in the Cascades that are currently closed in winter, plowing the White River road would not be terribly difficult. It's a paved road, not too high in elevation, with just a few well defined avalanche zones. But given today's budgetary realities, I can't imagine it happening.

We have one here on the way to Bachelor ski area--it is called Vista Butte.

Most of the time (no exaggeration..) it is filled with snowmobile trailers. The cross country sign gets stolen every season, but even when it is up this small park is still used lots, by snowmobile trailers. Such a nice little jaunt, but unfortunately you better not do "crack-o-noon" ski start as you will most likely have to start at some other sno-park.

I too am thinking about about getting a snowmo...just saying...

So does the lack of responses mean that there aren't many locations where skiers need / would like better access to the goods?

One of the limitations of the current system is that the term "non-motorized sno-park" is a bit of a misnomer -- there a few truly "non-motorized sno-parks" and most of them also require a "groomed trais" permit -- e.g. Hyak, Cabin Creek. A lot of the "non-motorized" sno-parks are like the sno-park as Blewett Pass -- there are non-motorized trails leading from that sno-park -- but the lot is frequently filled with sled trailers -- and sadly sometimes vehicles with ski-racks are vandalized while parked there (due to some sort of territorialsm ???)

A change in the sno-park system that I would like to see is to require a sno-park permit for every 20 feet of vehicle length -- that way the giant RVs with four place snow machine trailers will pay in proportion to the amount of parking area they consume. I think that would be a more appropriate way to fund the program than the doubling of fees we saw last year.

Another irritant is comparing the number of miles of groomed skier trails to the number of miles of groomed snow machine trails -- the ratio is something like 10:1 -- yet skiiers pay about the same for a sno-park permit.

One interesting tidbit I've learned is that the fees collected at the Hyak sno-park end up subsidizing the plowing and grooming all other users -- both motorized and non-motorized. Thousands of people use that sno-park every year to access the sledding hill. It is also true a huge percentage of winter visitors to Paradise are heading for the "snow play / sledding" area.

So from a user days perspective -- what the sno-park system could benefit most from are additional sno-parks with "snow play" areas and sledding hills.