If the amount of snow at lower elevations is an indication, then it will be a fair spell before some of the most popular campgrounds are open at Mount Rainer National Park.
Last week, I performed two days of volunteer work on the park's bark beetle project. It included trips to campgrounds for Ohanapecosh (1,900 feet elevation) and the walk-in only Ipsut Creek (2,300 feet).
Most years, we could have hiked to both sites. This time, we couldn’t have made it without snowshoes.
I didn’t take my video camera to either campground, but I was amazed to see the amount of snow still at Longmire (2,761 feet) on Wednesday, April 9.
In fact, there never has been so much this late at Longmire in the recorded history of the park.
The Western Regional Climate Center’s multi-layered Web site provided an overview of the Longmire weather station. It’s not nearly as easy to decipher as the stats on the back of a baseball card, but the results from 1978 to 2005 appear to show that the average snow depth at Longmire for April 9 is 7.0 inches. The chart shows the deepest reading of 38 inches most recently occurred in 1999. (That comes as no surprise. The 1998-1999 snow year is when Mount Baker set the world record of 1,142 inches.)
The snow year ends June 30, and the Paradise snowfall is slightly above 800 inches. That already makes it the 10th deepest since 1950. Just an average accumulation in April, May and June would push the Paradise total more than 900 inches, which would be No. 6 on the list. The most came in 1970-71 -- 1,122 inches. That was the mark that Mount Baker eclipsed.
Jeff Mayor, an outdoors writer for the News Tribune in Tacoma, posted a blog item on April 7 that refers to data for April 4, which indicated 47 inches at Longmire – 522 percent of normal.
Well, Mother Nature continues to pile it on. Kevin Bacher, the park's volunteer program manager, supplied me with an update today (April 16).
"For today, for example, the average snow depth at Longmire is 4.5 inches, and the record for this date is 33 inches, set in 1997," Bacher wrote via e-mail. "As of this morning our depth is 57 inches, and as I type this, it's snowing outside."
The snow depth at Paradise – now closed to snow play but not yet to snowshoeing -- is much more typical, around 120 percent of normal, and you see what’s normal on the video. I’ve included views of the Paradise Valley, the renovation at the Paradise Inn (looks about the same from the outside), construction of new visitors center and a pesky “camp robber.”
Mount Rainier’s lively and widely read unofficial blog – fed frequently by Mike Gauthier, the park’s climbing program manager and rescue coordinator – provides some great insight into climbing conditions and overall information. Today, the home page features photos taken inside the new visitor’s center.
There’s a surprise appearance toward the end of my Rainier footage – a “silver phase” red fox that is working the Paradise parking lot for handouts. A comment I heard from a construction worker led me to believe some of the workers are feeding the fox.
It is tempting to get a closer look at this beautiful animal by offering it food. However, as park employees try to teach visitors, “A fed fox is a dead fox.”
The latest example of that took place last year. Pickles, a fox that grew to associate food with people, suffered gruesome leg and head injuries. It is believed that Pickles – which was fed regularly by humans -- was struck by a car. Park officials opted to euthanize Pickles, a decision they struggled with.
One of the great rewards to being in the backcountry is to observe animals that should be wary of humans. Indeed, I spotted my first fox while snowshoeing in one of the more secluded campground loops at Ohana.
That was a true highlight, an unexpected reward for performing volunteer work.
I just wish it had been the only fox that I saw last week.
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Last season, volunteers accounted for nearly 20 percent of the work performed at the park. Those interested in volunteering are encouraged to contact Bacher at 360-569-2211, ext. 3385.
Bacher frequently updates this blog for the park's volunteers. There's valuable information within it, such as the projected opening of Highway 123 (May 9) and Highway 410 (May 23).