New Record for Mt. Rainier?

Cool!  First Robie's time travel TR, now a time machine webcam.

Is this the new general management plan?

Projecting recent trends, I think the plan might be to drive away all current winter users, then lease the Paradise Inn and parking lot to RMI for an exclusive high-end catskiing resort, with snowcoach access only.  And don't forget that Edith Basin and a slice of Pan Point are gerrymandered out of the Wilderness, so they could add a lift.  It would be a nice fit with NPS Director Jarvis' scheme to finance the National Parks with "Corporate Partnerships".   

With this tweet-"Winter weather advisory until 4pm today. The road from Longmire to Paradise will remain closed today"- it will be 8 out of 9 days closed for sure. Absolutely ridiculous- the NPS should be ashamed. Here is the photo for last Thursday when there was a borderline snow advisory and they did not open-

Cool!  First Robie's time travel TR, now a time machine webcam.

Projecting recent trends, I think the plan might be to drive away all current winter users, then lease the Paradise Inn and parking lot to RMI for an exclusive high-end catskiing resort, with snowcoach access only.  And don't forget that Edith Basin and a slice of Pan Point are gerrymandered out of the Wilderness, so they could add a lift.  It would be a nice fit with NPS Director Jarvis' scheme to finance the National Parks with "Corporate Partnerships".   

The most sensible solution for reliable winter acces is to forget about plowing the road in winter and build a tram from the Nisqually river bridge to Paradise. Build a big parking facility at Longmire and run shuttle buses from there up to the tram.

FWIW: I don't think that even with lifts that Paradise would make a viable ski area-- the Edith creek terrain is nice, but not up to snuff compared to what Crystal already has, besides most ski area barely break even on operations -- the real money is in real estate development adjacent to the ski area.

NPS engineers studied the Paradise tram idea and rejected it in the fifties.  It doesn't look to me like there's enough room for a lower tram station with bus access at the west end of Glacier Bridge. 

The retaining walls of the old approach road are deeply undermined and look like they could generate landslides almost to the current lot.  The existing deflections in the bridge railings suggest even the large supporting piers are slowly settling.  A tram facility including the cable anchors (if they could find something solid to hook to) could be subject to potential glacial outwash floods. 

Cougar Rock to Ricksecker and then along the old powerline route might be a better, but longer, tram route.

The most interesting part of the following quote to me was that the 1956-62 Paradise road relocation above Narada was designed for "all-year" access to avoid the avalanche slopes in Paradise Valley:

"Since the overall problem of winter use was such a contentious one, it will be helpful to approach the problem chronologically as it unfolded through four phases. The first phase, from 1945 to 1948, saw the NPS and the pro-development lobby become polarized over the issue of Paradise's suitability as a winter use center. The second phase, from 1948 to 1953, involved an unsuccessful search for alternative sites in and outside of the park. The third phase, from 1953 to 1955, marked the high tide of the long campaign for a chair lift or aerial tram, and culminated in Director Wirth's persuasive report to the Secretary of the Interior recommending against such a development. The fourth phase, from 1956 to 1962, saw the construction of a new all-year road from Marmot Point (above Narada Falls) to Paradise, and then a gradual decline in winter use as another ski resort was developed at Crystal Mountain outside the northeast corner of the park."

www.nps.gov/history/history/online_books/mora/adhi/chap14.htm

and the parking lot camera no longer is working ...

Looks like just the date is messed up. west.jpg, tatoosh.jpg, and mountain.jpg all look current.

Looks like just the date is messed up. west.jpg, tatoosh.jpg, and mountain.jpg all look current.

Believe half of what you see, none of what you hear. In the case of the webcams at Paradise, seeing is believing does not pertain to the parking lot.