Public meeting on Winter Operations, Mt. Rainier

Does the park service grant access to Paradise to anyone other than MRNP employees when they are playing around with the Longmire gate not opening or late opening's for the public?  Namely RMI or any other group?

The concessioner, Guest Services. Inc. does have early and closed day access through the gate to Paradise.  On weekends & holidays, they need prep time for the VC food service and gift shop.  When the white GSI vans pass through the Longmire gate, the public opening is probably less than an hour away. There is also usually a GSI crew that works nearly full-time weekdays on contractual maintenance of the historic Paradise Inn, mostly snow removal.  You can see their big red truck with the utility bed at Longmire and sometimes on webcam.

RMI, and I presume the junior guide services, also have early gate privleges and a history of access during previous public closures.  On the 11th of this month, I saw a RMI van pulling a trailer pass thru the Longmire gate nearly two hours before it opened to the public.

Randy also said they are doing a better job of posting road open/closed status on twitter feeds; to let the public know what they can expect. Their goal is to have that info posted prior to 6AM each day.

MRNP Paradise road tweets for Monday, January 28:
(6:22am)  "The gate to Paradise @ Longmire is projected to open by 12:00pm"
(8:49am)  "The gate to Paradise at Longmire is not projected to open today."

With 17+" of snow on telemetry & a high avy hazard, remaining closed should have been an easy call at 6:22.
What exactly is being projected anyway?  Certainly not an impression of reliability or professionalism.
If the road is going to stay closed, what is so hard about saying so in a straightforward manner, as soon as possible?
But then, this is an organization that routinely lies about the time the morning phone message is recorded...

MRNP Twitter for January 29th:  (6:43am) "The road to Longmire will be closed at the Nisqually Entrance due to numerous trees down across the road."

There never was a tweet concerning re-opening the road.  Apparently closures are more important than openings.  Management seems to operate in a bubble, unable to see the park as potential visitors do.

Not only that-- but Monday even though there was very little new snow the tweet announcing gate would be open at 1030 didn't come until 8 49 am ??
Bad  bad  if you are sitting a long drive away and trying to make a decision as to go or not. Seems like the tweets could be up by 7am and have been lots of days.

www.thenewstribune.com/2013/01/27/245121...ey-role-in-park.html

“We are so weather dependent. Even when you have a fee free day, if the weather is not good, we’re just not going to get a lot of people.” 
- MRNP Chief Ranger

Sorry Chuck, but it's not the weather that has reduced MRNP winter visitation from 225,000 in 2002-03 to about half that now.

"They also want to be cognizant of things the park is doing that might impede people from visiting, such as road closures..."

Might?  This is not rocket surgery.

CascadeClimber wrote in another thread::

"I used to really admire the NPS and the staff at MORA and I've become increasingly disillusioned over the last few years. My experience is that they do not want public involvement in the management process, and that any contact, including the public input meetings, is done out of requirement and at minimum standards. The decision to hold both of the meetings on the 30% winter closure in locations far, far from Puget Sound population centers (one was in Enumclaw of all the remote places) during work hours on weekdays is just one example of them checking the box, but utterly failing in the spirit of the rule."

"And I also don't believe it will change until we, collectively, get organized and force change."

Normally, these public meeting dog & pony shows preceed the predetermined outcome.  Don't forget these winter weekday closure meetings followed the policy change announcement on Twitter.  Enumclaw was probably chosen because the park rents offices there from USFS, as well as to minimize the torches & pitchforks.  The other meeting was at RMI in Ashford, apparently one of NPS Director Jarvis' early "corporate partnerships":  lastwilderness.blogspot.com/2011/10/everybody-does-it.html