Whiskey Bend Road, the gravel road connecting Olympic Hot Springs Road to the Whiskey Bend trailhead, is now closed to all use.
The road has been closed to vehicles, but open to foot, stock and bicycle traffic since last December, when winter storms caused extensive damage to the road.
On Thursday, the 4.5-mile Whiskey Bend Road was closed to all use for about 45 days so a contractor and the Olympic National Park road crew can begin repairs to two slide-damaged areas.
After last December’s slide damage, road engineers discovered large voids where log-cribbing beneath the road had eroded away, seriously compromising the road’s stability and motorists’ safety, necessitating the road closure and repairs, said a park news release.
STAR PARTY
Tacoma Astronomical Society member Don West-Wilke will lead a public observing at Mount Rainier National Park on Saturday. The program will begin at 7:30 p.m. at the Henry M. Jackson Memorial Visitor Center at Paradise. If the weather cooperates, there will be a chance to view objects in the night sky through a telescope.
West-Wilke also is scheduled to give a program at Paradise on Dec. 17, Feb. 18 and April 21.
Learn more about the club at tas-online.org.
SEPTEMBER VISITS
Mount Rainier
September 2011: 196,242
September 2010: 160,833
Difference: 22 percent
Year-to-date 2011: 919,949
Year-to-date 2010: 1,070,086
Difference: -14 percent
The great weather of Indian summer, the late peak to blossoming wildflowers and melt-out of trails helped attract almost 200,000 visitors to the park. It was most recreational visits in September since 1999 when there were 235,948 such visits. It was also the first time this year that the 2011 monthly total topped the same month’s count from last year. The 22 percent increased dropped the year-to-date difference by 6 percentage points from August’s 20.4 percent deficit.
Olympic
September 2011: 380,517
September 2010: 329,213
Difference: 15.6 percent
Year-to-date 2011: 2,596,706
Year-to-date 2010: 2,459,279
Difference: 5.6 percent
Good weather in September brought plenty of visitors to the park, pushing the year-to-date total to 5.6 percent above last year through nine months. One popular location was the Elwha district. Thanks to the start of the dam removal process early last month, visitation in the area was up 309.1 percent from September 2010 to 18,902 visits. At the opposite end of the spectrum, visitation to the Hoh district is down 12.1 percent compared with the first nine months last year.
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