The road to Paradise has ostensibly gotten easier to climb. After three consecutive seasons of limited openings at the gate to the state’s highest-elevation road-accessible winter wonderland, Mount Rainier National Park has restored seven days per week operations this winter.
But the return to form has elicited no fanfare from park leadership three years after the park unexpectedly shortened its winter schedule to weekends only amid an alleged staffing shortage and high local housing prices. Instead, the quiet rollout speaks to the awkward situation facing national parks this year as they must simultaneously adhere to a Department of Interior directive issued by Secretary Doug Burgum in April that they stay open as much as possible while also contending with fewer staff and tighter budgets.
For starters, the recent decision was not announced publicly. In winters past, the Mount Rainier website has included a Paradise winter FAQ page typically updated by early November with information on which days the road will be open. In 2024, the schedule was Friday to Monday. In 2023, the schedule was Thursday to Monday. In 2025, that website went offline.
When queried by The Seattle Times about the lack of a published winter schedule, park spokesperson Terry Wildy wrote via email in early December, “Every day has an equal chance of being open.”
Whether to open the gate each winter morning at mossy Longmire, elevation 2,700 feet, so the public can make the 12-mile journey along a switchbacking road to snowy Paradise at elevation 5,400 feet depends on a decision-making matrix. High avalanche danger, heavy overnight snow requiring extensive plowing, unsafe road conditions and inadequate staffing are among the reasons the park can choose to keep the gate closed for the day.
As long as these conditions are met, the Longmire gate typically opens at 9 a.m. and closes at 4 p.m. All vehicles are required to carry chains.
Access to Paradise is prized because it’s one of the only places in the state to offer reliable winter recreation away from chairlifts and ski lodges — hundreds of square miles of steep mountainsides, evergreens laden with snow and towering glaciers ideal for backcountry skiing and snowboarding, snowshoeing and ungroomed cross-country skiing.
When the park curtailed access in the winter of 2022-23, a coalition of local and national outdoor recreation groups pressured the park to reverse course. Rep. Kim Schrier, D-Issaquah, called a meeting with the superintendent. Staff at Seattle-based outing club The Mountaineers, whose history is intertwined with the national park, reported that members had reached out about the Paradise access issue more than any other topic in recent history.
At the time, Superintendent Greg Dudgeon cited inadequate staffing as the culprit. In January 2023, the park had 13 vacancies in areas like custodian, utility systems operator, snowplow driver and first responder. At the time, the park said it took 26 staff to maintain seven-days-per-week access. Dudgeon blamed high area housing costs as a contributing factor for the park’s inability to hire adequate staff.
Three winters later, what changes at the park have facilitated the increased access remain opaque. When asked if the park has added staff or secured more affordable housing, Wildy said, “The park has no further information to share.” Dudgeon did not respond to phone or email inquiries by press time.
The response to the park’s turnaround has been tempered in the wake of the muted announcement and changed political climate.
“This is obviously welcome news to The Mountaineers and our members,” said Betsy Robblee, the club’s conservation and advocacy director. “We didn’t get many details from the park about their staffing changes, so I can only speculate about what led to this decision. I suspect that the Secretary’s directive may have something to do with it, but I can’t confirm that’s the case.”
Colin Deverell, acting northwest regional director for the National Parks Conservation Association, has been watchdogging the tumult at the National Park Service this year.
“Point blank — nothing has changed at Mount Rainier National Park,” he said. “The challenges from 2023 have not gone away. In fact, they’ve been compounded by actions from this administration that have it made more difficult for parks to hire and retain park rangers.”
Deverell cited this year’s federal hiring freeze and subsequent confusion in the hiring process, including a lack of guidance on the Oct. 15 executive order “Ensuring Continued Accountability in Federal Hiring,” a push for deferred resignations or early retirements, and a move to encourage supervisors to give employees weak performance reviews.
And yet, even though inadequate staff is one of the reasons in the decision matrix for not opening the Longmire gate, the park’s snowiest heights have unequivocally been open more days this winter than in years past. Dec. 24 is a prime example. For the last three winters, Paradise was closed Tuesdays and Wednesdays no matter the conditions. But on Christmas Eve, despite fresh snow, the gate opened with a chain requirement in place and early closure at 3 p.m.
Whether the park can maintain this increased access throughout the winter is the unknown factor heading into the new year.
“Mount Rainier may be able to pull a rabbit out of a hat,” Deverell said. “But under this administration, the magic can only last for so long.”
