Raindawg Rules! An Update of Sorts.

[Raindawg]

Raindawg rules! Mt. Raindawg [Rainier], that is. I went up there Tuesday (to avoid the weekend ribbon-cutting and mass excitement) to check out the newly re-opened Park. Here's what I saw: I was told a ways back that Sunshine Point Campground, just past the Nisqually Entrance, was utterly demolished,. Heck no! Perhaps a third of it has "gone missing" but a good portion of it remains and will hopefully be restored.

Further up the road, Kautz Creek was amazing. The old stream bed is a virtual trickle with reddish iron oxide staining its banks. A few hundred yards up the road tells the story where the mighty Kautz Creek redirected itself, took out the road, and where the big culvert has apparently been installed. Road work was still going on at this impressive site. Meanwhile, at Longmire, the Ranger at the Museum showed me a cool map of the Park with the many wiped out trail crossings in all sectors. Heck of a lot of bridge outages and trail vanishes. But she also told me that there was no crossing of the Nisqually River opposite Cougar Rock (which would take one up the Wonderland Trail to Narada Falls and Paradise). There was, in fact, a very nicely prepared log with a railing that takes one across the animated Nisqually, and a crew of "Washington Conservation Corps" were at work on the opposite side, creating a new trail where the old one had been wiped out. Interestingly, the cable trolley crossing just upstream was apparently taken down and out by flood debris and falling trees!

 

Driving up the road, there were road repairs just past Cougar Rock that are almost unnoticed. At Narada Falls, there were only a couple of cars parked and I drove up to the juncture with Stevens Canyon Road. There was a pull-out on the right side so I parked there because the road is still closed. I put on my running shoes and ran on dry pavement to Reflection Lakes. Spectacular! Great views of Lane Peak...as of yesterday (Tuesday, 8 May), "The Zipper" was looking sweet with no obstructions. "Lover's Lane" had a couple of blockages in it's upper third which will likely melt out in the next few days. Elsewhere in the Tatoosh, there were tons of snow everywhere....and not a single car on a closed road. Some folks were apparently up there during the opening days of last weekend as I saw tracks heading up the snow towards Pinnacle/Castle across from Reflection Lake. Again, the road is bare...save your skis and snowshoes for the snows above, if need be.

 

I ran back down Stevens Canyon Road and noticed the Paradise Valley Road seemed somewhat bare so I ran up that to Paradise. This road, too, is presently closed to traffic and I met a snowshoer walking who had apparently ascended Mazama Ridge in solid to post-hole conditions. Running up the Valley, I saw some disturbing signs of wet-snow slides including some large chunks of stone that had broken off from cliffs above and landed on the roadway accompanied by snow.

 

At Paradise, construction crews were busy at work on the new Visitor's Center in the parking lot and large concrete pylons were in place. The old restrooms were accessible and a trail is marked for access to the snow fields above. I ran back down the main road back toward Narada Falls to my car.

 

It was great! Tons of snow on The Mountain from about 4500 feet on up with some of the upper reaches still looking truly winter.

Beautiful!

 

Glad to see the Park reopened and thankful for all the people working hard to make that happen! Mt. Raindawg rules!

[Off_White]

Nice report, doubly nice to see some stoke rather than doom and gloom about the park.

[skykilo]

YEAH YEAH YEAH

Raindawg ruling yesterday afternoon

[Alpinfox]

 

Thanks for the conditions report.

 

Very much appreciated.