Mount Rainier Administrative History

PART SIX: YEARS OF CONSOLIDATION, 1965-1995

XIX. ZONING THE PARK (continued)

PLANNING IN THE FRONT COUNTRY

The park administration contended with the same basic problems in the front country that it did in the backcountry: environmental degradation, crowding, and the legitimate desire of the national park visitor to escape regimentation. With regard to environmental degradation, the main strategy for the front country was to move visitor concentrations to lower elevations on the mountain. This concept had originated with the Mission 66 plan for Mount Rainier yet it was not until the 1970s that it really bore fruit, with campground closures at Paradise and Sunrise and the removal of park headquarters to the Tahoma Woods administrative site.

Alleviation of crowding in the front country was more complicated. Historically, park planners had recommended additional roads and development areas to disperse visitor use, beginning with the Westside Road in the 1920s, continuing with Sunrise and the Eastside Road in the 1930s, and ending with the Stevens Canyon Road in the 1950s. Now that the park was fully developed, park planners had to look for other ways to alleviate crowding. Their efforts focused on the existing development areas and automobile use. Reconfiguration of traffic flow and parking lots at Paradise, Longmire, and Sunrise helped somewhat, but what planners wanted most was to introduce mass transit and reduce or even eliminate automobile access to some areas.

The master plan of 1972 conceived of mass transit as the wave of the future for Mount Rainier National Park. Twenty-three years later, the same concept may be part of the new general management plan. The problem with mass transit is that it runs up against another primary objective of park planning, and that is to preserve the visitors' sense of freedom in the national park. For the majority of front country users, driving their private automobiles over scenic roads continues to be the quintessential national park experience. [49] How to alleviate crowding without subjecting park visitors to unwanted regimentation is a problem that continues to confound park planning efforts.

Developed Areas

The 1972 master plan listed fifteen "developed areas" in the park excluding the road system. Only three of the fifteen--Tahoma Woods (just outside of the park), Cougar Rock, and Stevens Canyon Entrance--were of recent origin. The other twelve were Paradise, Longmire, Sunrise, Ohanapecosh, Nisqually Entrance, Carbon River Entrance, White River Entrance, Tipsoo Lake, Camp Muir, Mowich Lake, and Carbon River-Ipsut Creek, all of which dated from before World War II. The master plan classified all of these areas except Camp Muir and Tahoma Woods as Class II lands, or "General Outdoor Recreation Areas." The master plan stated that "the area included in this classification is sufficiently large to accommodate projected use." [50] There would be no more developed areas in Mount Rainier National Park; by and large, the park facilities would be renovated or replaced but not expanded.

The master plan called for removal of some facilities. Automobile campgrounds at Sunrise and Mowich Lake would be changed to walk-in campgrounds, and the campground at Paradise would be eliminated altogether. The administrative offices at Longmire would be replaced with new offices at Tahoma Woods. Over the next few years these plans were implemented. The changes to these facilities represented significant planning and policy choices which originated in the Mission 66 era but only came to fruition in the 1970s.

It is not clear why Mount Rainier's alpine car campgrounds persisted as long as they did, for the development of Cougar Rock campground in 1960-61 was supposed to have eliminated the need for them. The environmental costs of operating public campgrounds at such high elevations were perhaps most evident at Sunrise, where the alpine tundra vegetation was especially vulnerable to trampling and wind erosion. There were two campgrounds at Sunrise in the early 1960s: a small, upper campground adjacent to the visitor center and a lower one by Shadow Lake. Superintendent Rutter closed the upper campground around 1965 but kept the lower one open. It was Rutter's plan to expand the White River campground before closing the lower Sunrise campground. While awaiting funds with which to expand the White River campground, Rutter had his maintenance division renovate the CCC-era comfort stations in the lower Sunrise campground. In 1973, Superintendent Tobin converted this campground to walk-in campsites (mainly for the benefit of Wonderland Trail users). The comfort stations were closed and all but one were removed a few years later. [51]

Still more surprising was the decision in the early 1960s to develop a new public campground at Paradise. Apparently the idea was to redevelop the old campground area into a day-use picnic area in order to compensate for the planned removal of the Paradise Lodge and horse concession. The newly-built campground was located on the inside of a wide horseshoe bend in the two-way road to Paradise, just below the picnic area. But Superintendent Rutter soon recognized that the new campground was ill-conceived, for it was built in a depression that stayed snowbound until late July and had poor drainage for the remainder of the summer. In 1973, the park administration began operations to remove all facilities from this campground, and in the 1980s an effort was made to restore the area to a natural state. [52]

Perhaps the reason Mount Rainier's high-elevation campgrounds persisted as long as they did was that the low-elevation sites posed their own set of problems, mostly relating to visitor safety and maintenance. In 1963, debris from a massive rockfall on Little Tahoma came to rest within a few miles of the White River campground. This striking event served to remind everyone that Mount Rainier's glacial river valleys were pathways for the mountain's most destructive forces. In 1967, a glacial outburst flood inundated the former Tahoma Creek campground after it had been converted to a picnic area. Mission 66 plans to develop a campground at Klickitat Creek never materialized, while plans to develop a campground at Mowich Lake were scaled back in the 1960s as it became evident that that area was already sustaining too much use. In 1977, heavy rains caused extensive flood damage to the Ipsut Creek and Sunshine Point campgrounds. Even the old Longmire campground fell into disfavor. The campground was located in the Nisqually River floodplain. Moreover, the access road took the visitor through the Longmire administrative area and across the old Nisqually bridge. The park administration consigned the Longmire campground to overflow use during the 1970s, and finally closed it to the public in 1989. [53]

When the NPS acquired the Tahoma Woods administrative site in 1961 the intent was to move all administrative offices out of Longmire and convert the Longmire area entirely to public accommodations and concession employee housing. This did not work out as planned. Budget cuts set back the timetable by several years; the NPS did not move park headquarters out of Longmire until 1977. By the time the move did occur, NPS officials had decided to keep various administrative functions, including the large maintenance operation, in Longmire. For a while all division chiefs had their offices at park headquarters. This proved to be awkward, and within a few years only the superintendent, administrative officer, and concession specialist kept their offices in Tahoma Woods while the other division chiefs had moved their offices back to Longmire. This arrangement has continued to the present day. Consequently, the NPS retained a strong administrative presence in Longmire, which functioned as a kind of field office to the headquarters at Tahoma Woods. Although the outcome is not at all what park planners had envisioned for Longmire, the arrangement has proven satisfactory from the standpoint of administrative efficiency. [54]

Tahoma Woods has come closer to fulfilling its intended role as an employee village. Out of 26 employee residences originally planned for Tahoma Woods, 14 were built. The NPS has since acquired a number of mobile homes and placed them at the site as well. This compares to some 30 permanent and seasonal employee residences at Longmire. Generally the competition for housing at Tahoma Woods is keener, especially among families with school-age children, who attend the nearby Columbia Crest Elementary/Middle School or Eatonville High School. Approximately one third of the park's permanent employees avail themselves of government housing at one of these two sites, while the rest live in the nearby communities of Ashford, Elbe, Eatonville, and Morton. [55]

The NPS provides seasonal employee housing at Tahoma Woods, Longmire, Paradise, Sunrise, Ohanapecosh, White River, and Carbon River. Except for a few mobile homes, all of this housing dates back to the Mission 66 era or earlier. In 1992, the Denver Service Center contracted with the architectural and engineering firm of Jones and Jones to design a new employee apartment building at Paradise to replace the old Paradise ski lodge. The plan, estimated to cost $4.2 million, is expected to reach completion in the spring of 1997, providing a total of eight apartments for 26 employees. [56]

Roads and Transportation

No new roads or mass transit systems have been developed in the park since 1965. In view of this issue's importance, this section discusses various unimplemented proposals to change the park's road and transportation systems. The section ends with a review of the partial closure of the Westside Road in 1992, which constitutes the only significant change in the park's road and transportation system in the past thirty years.

Sunrise Tramway Proposal. The master plan of 1972 proposed the development of an aerial tramway between the White River valley and Sunrise. The objective of this proposal was "to eventually remove the automobile completely" from the Sunrise area, reserving it for pedestrian use only. This would alleviate crowding and reduce the level of visitor impacts on the environment. As another benefit, the existing road cut on Sunrise Ridge would be restored to a natural condition. [57]

Although the Sunrise tramway proposal never got to the stage of a detailed engineering study, planners had a rough idea of what it would entail. A direct route of ascent from the White River Valley would involve an elevation rise of 2,500 feet; if this were infeasible, a more gradual route of ascent would be from the east, traversing Sunrise Ridge, requiring an elevation gain of 2,700 feet with some nearly horizontal stretches along the way. Depending on the route, the tramway would carry 300 to 500 passengers per hour (3,000 to 5,000 per day), or about half of the peak daily use by private automobilists. Construction costs for a tramway and terminal buildings would be several million dollars. Visitors would presumably be charged a fee to ride the tramway.

The public response to the proposal was strongly negative. Fully 92 percent of those who commented specifically on the tramway were opposed to it. Respondents mainly opposed the tramway on the grounds that a tramway would degrade the beauty of the area, that a shuttle bus would be less intrusive, or that the existing road made a tramway unnecessary. Park planners eliminated the tramway proposal from the final master plan approved in 1976. [58]

Carbon River and Mowich Lake Road Proposals. Park planners wanted to eliminate automobile use of the Carbon River and Mowich Lake roads, but were thwarted here as well. The master plan of 1972 commented on the Carbon River-Ipsut Creek area,

This unique resource area of the park is particularly appropriate for the immediate implementation of a visitor circulation system using vehicles other than automobiles. Unlike the loop road accesses to the heavily visited areas of the park, access to this area is by dead-end road. [59]

The master plan proposed to develop a parking area at the park boundary and to limit access to foot, bicycle, and public mini-bus traffic. As for Mowich Lake, the master plan stated,

Removal of the automobiles from the vicinity of this highly scenic area would greatly increase the quality of the visitor experience. Although implementation of alternate methods of visitor access is not as simple as at Carbon River-Ipsut Creek, efforts should be made to keep automobiles as far from the lake as possible. Consideration should be given to ending the road at the park boundary and using leased parking space on private land outside. [60]

Subsequently, Park Service officials quietly dropped the proposal to close the Carbon River Road to private vehicular traffic. A potential problem was how to schedule mini-bus service in the spring and fall when the area received considerable use but not enough to make public transit economically feasible. Furthermore, there would be no cost savings on road maintenance, since the road would still be maintained for the mini-busses and administrative use. Probably the biggest factor in the plan's abandonment, however, was the concern that closing the road to private vehicular traffic would only turn away visitors rather than get them out of their cars. This visitor use would then be diverted to other areas of the park which were even less able to absorb it. [61]

Park Service officials advanced the proposal to close the Mowich Lake Road somewhat further. For one thing, this proposal had the support of the Seattle Mountaineers. [62] More importantly it had a clearer objective: to give the much-trodden shore around Mowich Lake a chance to recover. In order to win public support for the road closure, the Park Service proposed to rehabilitate the historic Grindstone Trail from the park boundary to Mowich Lake. This would be both more direct and a more pleasurable hiking experience than walking along the packed soil and rock of the roadbed. [63] For one reason or another, the road closure never happened.

As park planners worked on the general management plan for Mount Rainier, various options for limiting access to Mowich Lake were once again under discussion, including the possible addition of a Mowich Lake entrance station at the Paul Peak trailhead area.

Mass Transit Study Proposal. While the transportation issue in the northwest corner of the park was relatively self-contained, the problem of congestion elsewhere in the park was more complex because the south and east sides of the park were linked together by the Stevens Canyon Road. Indeed, one of the purposes of the Stevens Canyon Road had been to facilitate the one-day scenic loop drive around the mountain. The park's through-road system did not easily lend itself to mass transit. Visitors would be less willing to accept mandatory public transit on a through-road than a dead-end road. If visitors had to leave their private vehicles at Longmire to take a shuttle bus to Paradise, for example, they would likely feel frustrated at being unable to continue over the Stevens Canyon Road. This problem notwithstanding, Mount Rainier's master plan called for a transportation study "to determine the exact methods required to satisfy present and future needs." [64] The master plan explicitly aimed to reduce private vehicle use in the park.

Funding for the transportation study was delayed for many years. Finally, in 1987, Superintendent Guse initiated a study of visitor attitudes toward a potential mass transit system. This study, carried out by the Cooperative Park Studies Unit, University of Washington, used visitor surveys to test the public's receptivity to six mass transit scenarios involving various combinations of return-trip shuttles on the Nisqually-Paradise, Sunrise, and Carbon River roads. The study revealed that visitor opinion was almost evenly divided, with many people holding strong views for or against the proposal. [65]

In 1993 the NPS contracted with a Denver-based company, BRW Inc. to evaluate transportation needs in Mount Rainier National Park. BRW's study included an analysis of summer and winter visitor circulation patterns and an evaluation of the feasibility of implementing a mass transit or Visitor Transportation System (VTS) in order to reduce automobile congestion. On June 2, 1994, the park convened a Transportation Alternatives Workshop at which BRW presented its findings and preliminary VTS alternatives. Regional transit planning authorities attended the workshop together with representatives from a wide range of organizations interested in Mount Rainier National Park. After the workshop, BRW modified the VTS alternatives in light of public comments and the Park Service's review and submitted its final report in 1995. [66]

The Park Service is currently incorporating the VTS alternatives into the park's new General Management Plan (GMMP). The GMP team is going into greater depth than does the BRW study in assessing the transportation system's environmental impacts and the VTS has yet to take final form.

West Entrance Station. The park entrance stations, in recent years, have experience traffic backups during peak periods of visitation. The problem has at times been acute at the Nisqually or west entrance station, where traffic backups may extend west of the park boundary for as much as one mile. The backup inhibits access to commercial properties and creates a hazard for vehicles entering or leaving those establishments. Moreover, the stop and go traffic under the dense forest canopy at this location causes a buildup of exhaust fumes, which is an annoyance to park visitors and a health risk to park employees who work or reside at Nisqually Entrance. Other problems with Nisqually Entrance include the limited amount of parking for visitors requiring backcountry permits, and the dark and damp atmosphere of this location.

In 1984-85, the NPS considered three alternative locations for the west entrance: Kautz Creek, West Sunshine Point, and the Westside Road junction. Questions of where the inevitable traffic backup would be least objectionable had to be weighed against other factors such as space for vehicle parking, security for entrance station personnel, and efficiency of fee collection. Another alternative was to upgrade the existing layout, mainly by adding a second kiosk and third eastbound traffic lane. [67] The park administration favored the West Sunshine Point location. [68] Due to fund limitations, however, none of these alternatives was implemented.

Westside Road Closure. Glacial outburst floods have afflicted the Westside Road periodically. A major glacial outburst flood occurred at the South Tahoma Glacier in August 1967 which devastated the Tahoma Creek campground. Glacial outburst floods of lesser magnitude occurred in 1970 and 1971. After a fifteen-year hiatus, Tahoma Creek experienced another series of glacial outburst floods beginning in 1986. A flood in 1987 inundated the Tahoma Creek picnic area. A pair of floods in July 1988 deposited mud on the Westside Road from the former picnic area to just above Fish Creek and diverted all of Tahoma Creek's streamflow to the westernmost stream channel flanking the roadbed. Heavy rains in mid-October 1988, perhaps combined with additional glacial outburst floods, resulted in erosion of the roadbed and collapse of two sections of road just below Dry Creek. After the road was repaired in 1989, more high water episodes during the winter of 1989-90 caused additional erosional damage. [69]

In May 1989, the park administration prepared an environmental assessment on the proposed flood damage repair which addressed two alternatives: (1) no action (leaving the road closed to travel), and (2) reconstruction of the road on its original alignment and grade. The NPS selected the second alternative as its preferred alternative. During a 30-day public review period, the NPS received just four comments; three in favor of the proposed action and one in favor of keeping the road closed.

Regional Director Charles H. Odegaard expressed reservations about the plan, however. First, if the road were reopened it would expose visitors to the potential hazard of future glacial outburst floods. Therefore, the NPS needed to have more information on this phenomenon and a warning system in place so that visitors could make their own risk assessments. Second, Odegaard maintained that the environmental assessment process was inadequate for evaluating the potential for further damage from glacial outburst floods, or "jokulhlaups," as they were now called. "A primary management planning need is to pre evaluate the Mount Rainier road system in relation to future jokulhlaups, river flooding, and seismic damage," Odegaard wrote. A third and related issue was that NPS policy must be brought into compliance with Executive Orders 11988, "Floodplain Management," and 11990, "Protection of Wetlands." The wording in these executive orders suggested that the Westside Road might have to be phased out or relocated. [70]

Acting on these concerns, the Park Service requested that the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) make a reconnaissance of a potential road realignment. FHWA engineer Scott Rustay reported on two alternatives in December 1991, one involving a steep 15 percent grade and the other involving a 7 percent grade but not entirely bypassing the Tahoma Creek floodplain. Both alternate routes led through old growth forest. Moreover, both alternatives entailed an adjustment of the boundary of the Mount Rainier Wilderness. [71]

Following FHWA's realignment reconnaissance effort, the NPS prepared an Environmental Assessment (EA) for management of the Westside Road and released it for a 30-day public review period in January 1993. The EA put forth five alternative management actions for consideration. These included the two FHWA alternative realignments, permanent closure of the road above Dry Creek (converting the road bed above that point to administratively designated "wilderness"), continuous repair of the existing road, as needed (the "no action" alternative), and temporary closure of the road above Dry Creek to non-administrative vehicular traffic for the forseeable future, leaving it open to foot, stock, bicycle, and administrative use (the preferred alternative). Under the preferred alternative, the NPS would monitor the debris flood activities and consider repairing and reopening the road should the flooding substantially subside. Following public input, the park prepared a Finding of No Significant Impact (FONSI) and implemented the preferred alternative.