Although much of the Glacier Basin Trail reroute at Mount Rainier National Park has been completed, it won’t be until next season that the work is finally done.
Park crews and volunteers have been working since 2008 to restore the section of the trail, just outside the White River Campground, damaged in the historic November 2006 flood.
Topping the volunteer effort this year has been the Washington Trails Association. The group estimates it had work crews on the site every week for four months this season. Since the project began in 2008, the association has hosted more than 68 work parties with more than 186 individual volunteers contributing more than 7,000 hours of manual labor, according to the association.
Hikers have not been introduced to this new route yet; the ends were intentionally left unfinished, and will be knitted together with the existing trail early next season. You are still welcome to visit the Glacier Basin Trail, however – a temporary path has been sketched out near the riverbed in the floodplain.
Carl Fabiani, the park’s trail coordinator, said a full season of work needs to be done in 2010 before the project is complete. He said another 2,000 feet of new trail remains to be built. When completed, the reroute will include 11/2 miles of new trail.
September visitation: There were 175,430 recreational visits last month, down 3.62 percent from September 2008 when there 182,021 recreational visits. Through September, there have been 963,599 recreational visits, up 3.75 percent from 928,709 in the first nine months last year.
Road closures: This is the last weekend the Sunrise Road will be open. The road will close for the season on Sunday.
Scheduled to close on Nov. 1 are Paradise Valley, Stevens Canyon and Mowich Lake roads.
Jeffrey P. Mayor, The News Tribune
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