Storm-battered Mount Rainier park to reopen May 5
Wrecked roads, trails to limit access for visitors
Mount Rainier National Park is scheduled to reopen May 5 while repairs continue from last year's flooding and windstorms that caused $36 million in damage.
Visitors should be prepared for limited access, as well as repair crews in some parts, park spokeswoman Lee Taylor said Thursday.
All opening dates are tentative and should be made final in about two weeks, she said.
Popular park destinations are expected to be open, but it might be impossible to travel some routes.
Beginning May 5, the road to Paradise, as well as Longmire Museum and Jackson Visitor Center, will open. The National Park Inn also will open then.
State Route 410, a main east-west route on the park's northeastern side, should open in mid-May.
Two sections of the 93-mile- long Wonderland Trail have been washed away and will not be ready for summer hikers.
As the snow melts this spring, the full extent of trail damage will be revealed, but rangers already warn that hikers will have to walk four miles along the Stevens Canyon Road to avoid an earth slide that wiped out the trail.
On the north side of the mountain, the Carbon River wiped out another section of the Wonderland Trail, and hikers will need to take a bypass along the Northern Loop Trail.
Other sections of the trail have been covered with fallen trees and river debris and will be difficult to navigate this summer.
Many of the bridges have been washed away or damaged to the point at which hikers will need to ford many of the rivers and streams along the trail.
"Those planning their 'once in a lifetime' trip on the Wonderland Trail might want to postpone the experience until next year," Taylor said.
Continue reading this article from the Seattle P-I:
Storm-battered Mount Rainier park to reopen May 5
