Headed to Mount Rainier? Access to popular part of the park to be limited this winter
The road to Paradise at Mount Rainier National Park won’t be open to visitors on weekdays this winter, park officials announced.
They’ll keep the road open to the public Saturdays and Sundays, but staffing challenges mean it’ll be closed Monday through Friday, effective Nov. 29, according to a Tuesday news release.
Paradise’s sledding area, the only place in the park where sledding is allowed, won’t open this year, the release said.
“Mount Rainier National Park offers terrific winter recreational opportunities and making this access change will help visitors make plans knowing that weather permitting, the road to Paradise will be open on weekends when the most visitation typically occurs,” superintendent Greg Dudgeon said in the release. “The park did not make this decision lightly, but safety is at the forefront of everything we do. We believe these winter access changes are the safest choice for our staff and visitors during the winter season.”
Terry Wildy, the park’s chief of interpretation, education and volunteers, told The News Tribune on Wednesday that the staffing challenges are similar to what other employers have faced. Housing costs and availability in the region are part of the problem, she said.
“We also have specific skill sets that we’re looking to hire,” Wildy said.
One example is the crew that plows the road. Those jobs require a commercial driver’s license, and drivers who are up for plowing narrow, winding roads with steep drop-offs. The crew would normally have 10 workers. Right now it has five.
“It takes skill and it takes some time to learn,” Wildy said.
They recruit months in advance for those jobs, she said, but several announcements didn’t turn up enough viable candidates. If they posted now, she said, it would take until summer to get someone on board for one of the permanent federal jobs. She said they’re looking at possible short-term options, such as borrowing workers from elsewhere, but that other parks are having trouble filling outstanding positions.
The crew that plows the road also maintains and grooms the sledding area, she said, which meant a difficult decision given the limited staffing.
“We had to pick roads,” she said.
The park is also short on custodial positions, utilities workers and personnel who would respond to emergencies.
“Those are all positions that we need to be able to safely open up Paradise seven days a week,” Wildy told The News Tribune. “... We finally reached a tipping point where we just had to draw the line.”
They’re hiring for a utility system operator.
“This is one of the positions that we would need to help maintain Paradise operations, as our water and wastewater systems require daily work,” Wildy said in an email about the job.
More information is available at https://www.usajobs.gov/job/691231400.
Places to visit at Mount Rainier this winter
She emphasized that the park is open to visitors seven days a week. Officials put together a website with alternative places in the park to visit this winter: https://www.nps.gov/mora/planyourvisit/alternative-winter-destinations-activities.htm
“There are places that you can snowshoe,” Wildy said.
The road to Longmire is plowed daily. There’s a restaurant, a gift shop and hiking opportunities there, she said. Businesses in Ashford, on the way to the park, are open.
Mount Rainier officials are looking for ways to open the road to Paradise seven days a week during the winter months, Wildy said.
“Park staff will continue to revisit the Paradise access schedule should staffing levels change during the winter season,” according to the news release.
Mount Rainier is staffed most heavily in the summer, Wildy said, when it sees the most visitors. The park saw about 69,000 visitors December, January and February 2021, she said, which was about 4 percent of the park’s total visitors in 2021.
For now, according to the park’s website, the road to Paradise is expected to open seven days a week again in the spring.
“We’d hate for anybody to be severely hurt because we opened the road to Paradise, but for some reason didn’t have anyone who could respond to an emergency,” Wildy said. “We want to protect the visitors. We want to protect the staff that are working ... and hope to provide improved access in the future.”
For more information, visit https://www.nps.gov/mora/planyourvisit/paradise-winter-access-faq.htm.
