Mt. Rainier, Longmire-Paradise Road opening matrix

So what part of this Matrix made them wait until 9 ish on Monday to open the damn gate.....melting asphalt due to high temperatures? No air conditioning in the Park truck?... Coffee maker not working.....donut delivery delayed?

Monday 4/23 from 0630 - 0900 the road crew was moving the snow cat and the snow thrower from paradise to Stevens Canyon Y on a flat-bed. As you can imagine, a Pisten Bully on a flat bed blocks both lanes.

On glacier hill there was a boulder big enough that it required a bobcat to remove it and a small sluff avi debris pile about 3 ft deep in the downhill lane.

On warm days like we had that weekend there is a ton of rockfall onto the road along glacer hill and between Narada Falls and the sewege treatment facility.

THANKS! for the information runningwscissors; all such info is highly valued (by me, at least).

Me Too !

Totally!  Info is everything..

Piston Bully?  Really?  If we're especially nice runningw/scissors, can you get just a couple of swaths groomed, here and there...?   

Yeah they were on their way to groom the bowls next to Pinnacle peak & the Castle. Then they're gonna take care of Nisqually chute (cause its getting a little skied out), and if we're lucky maybe they can use a winch cat to groom Fuhrer Finger later in the season. Crevasse rescue is soooo much easier with a snow cat!

After a quickly deleted tweet last week, it now (8:43am today) appears the road to Paradise is no longer locked nightly:
"The gate to Paradise is open unless posted otherwise. Closures still possible depending on weather. Check here for changes in status'"
twitter.com/#!/MountRainierNPS