CARBONADO — A year after flooding ravaged Mount Rainier National Park, park officials are bracing for another storm. This time they could face a flood of public discontent as they ponder permanently closing Carbon River Road, an unpaved five-mile artery that accesses the most popular trails and campground in the park’s northwest corner.
Not only does the road give visitors access to Carbon Glacier, but the corridor is also home to bull trout, spotted owls and marble murrelets, all threatened species. The road was damaged Nov. 6 and 7 last year when 17.9 inches of rain fell in 36 hours.
The fate of the heavily damaged road is the biggest remaining flood recovery project and is destined to be controversial, said park Superintendent Dave Uberuaga.
The road’s future will be determined by several factors: environmental impact, recreational access and sustainability.
Park officials are analyzing the road and preparing an environmental impact study in hopes of having a plan by the end of the year. The estimated cost is more than $927,420.
By January, Uberuaga hopes to start holding community meetings to hear public feedback. And he hopes to finalize the plan early next year.
Carbon River Road has been closed to vehicle traffic since the flood, making access to the popular Carbon Glacier Trail and Ipsut Creek Campground difficult.
“Whoever the twits are who want to close the road really don’t understand what’s going on,” said Bob Arnold of Puyallup. “At 70 to 80 years old, the people I hike with can do the seven-mile (Carbon Glacier) hike, but if they extend it to 15 miles it’s not realistic.”
Park officials have long known Carbon River Road would become unusable at some point. The 2002 general management plan states: “Private vehicles and shuttles would be permitted on the road until a major washout occurred. At that time, the road would be dedicated to non-motorized uses (hiking and biking).”
As the Carbon River deposits debris on its riverbed, it rises. Carbon River Road, however, is stationary. Today, the river is higher than the road, leaving it susceptible to washouts. The road has washed out regularly over the past 20 years even though the park has added berms to the river bank and tried diverting the river.
“I would like to have it (the road) open,” Uberuaga said. “But it may not be sustainable.”
When park officials first saw the ravaged road after last year’s storm, they figured it was the major washout they’d feared. That’s not necessarily the case now.
“Is this the major event?” Uberuaga said. “Some say yes, and some say we could get it open. That’s where we are at right now.”
From Ipsut Creek Campground at the end of Carbon River Road, it’s a 3.5-mile hike to the Carbon Glacier, the lowest glacier in the continental United States.
“It is an incredible day trip to the snout of the glacier,” Uberuaga said.
Closing the road turns this seven-mile hike into a 17-mile trip, beyond the range of most day hikers.
“For me, the road closure makes the hike less appealing,” said Andrea Wagner, a manager of Tacoma’s Backpackers Supply. “I love hiking to the glacier. But walking on the road is not my ideal hike.”
George Penfield, a 63-year-old Puyallup resident, said a hike to the glacier likely would require an overnight stay for him, but he’s OK with that.
“In a perfect world, I’d like to see them repair the road,” Penfield said. “Unfortunately, there is no practical, sensible and affordable way to fix the road. It’s a geological inevitability that the road will just wash out again. I don’t think we should be throwing money away.”
When biologists explored the damaged sections of the road last spring, they found bull trout swimming in a new tributary of the Carbon River that flowed where there was once road.
Because bull trout are listed as threatened species under the federal Endangered Species Act, their presence means crews can work on sections of the road shared by the river only from July 15 to Aug. 30, said park biologist Barbara Samora.
Marbled murrelets and northern spotted owls, also threatened species, have been recorded in the road corridor. Jim Schaberl, the park’s wildlife ecologist, said the road can be repaired with minimal impact to the birds.
The bull trout are a different story.
“I think if we try to rebuild the road, it will be very difficult to do without an adverse effect to bull trout,” Samora said.
But that doesn’t mean the park won’t choose to rebuild anyway.
“It is my job to advise him (Uberuaga) on what would be best for the bull trout,” Samora said. “It would be best for the bull trout to leave the road alone, but that’s not the only factor he has to consider.”
Clint Kieffer, a 33-year-old Puyallup resident, is one of the some 100,000 people who use Carbon River Road each year. He’s hiked in the area since he was a boy.
“If it wasn’t for that road, I might have never hiked that area,” Kieffer said.
What he likes most about the corridor is that it isn’t as busy as other areas of the park.
It will stay that way if the road closes, but Kieffer believes the rest of the park will suffer.
“If it’s harder to get to the trails, I think a lot of people will start going to other parts of the park that are already overcrowded,” Kieffer said.
The loss of the road to Ipsut Creek Campground also means the loss of year-round car camping in the park. Access to the only other year-round campground, Sunshine Point, washed away during the same storm.
Park officials hope the public doesn’t get caught up in the idea that the road will either completely reopen or close. The solution could be somewhere in between. Officials will consider opening part of the road or repairing it enough to offer shuttle service. However, it’s unlikely the final mile of the road can be rebuilt, Uberuaga said.
Even if Carbon River Road is repaired next year, park officials say count on it washing out again.
This is why the Park Service is working to change the boundaries of the northwest corner of the park.
The park has acquired almost half of the 800 acres it needs outside the northwest corner. The land is expected to cost $6 million. Uberuaga said this area of the park could be in place in six years.
“There is a lot of competition (among national parks) for federal land acquisition, but we are in the top five nationally and the number one priority in the Pacific Northwest,” Uberuaga said.
The flood damage to Carbon River Road helps keep the park near the top of the priority list, he said. “Maybe there was a little silver lining in the storm.”
The new part of the park would have trails, a ranger station and a campground.
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