April Snow

This is the view looking east from the Jackson Visitors Center at Paradise. On your left is the Mountain Guide Center and beyond it and the road in the far left of the parking lot is the Paradise Lodge which opens he last week of May before the Memorial Day Holiday for the season through September.

This is before and after the snowplow work is done after snowstorms, this one this week. The driver drove up from Longmire to the Administration area to get the snowplow to clear the road to the parking lot and the parking lot, and then the road down the hill to meet the snowplows working up from Longmire to about the Nisqually River Bridge.

So give thanks to the NPS folks when you visit those days they had to get up early in the cold winter and spring weather to clear the road for you to get there from Longmire and the gate which is used to control traffic to Paradise. All the work of great federal government employees.

Back

I'm back. Well, sorta' back. I've been gone from here for health issues and problems stemming from a pinched Sciatic nerve in July 2012 and digestive problems since March 2008, the latter taking 4 yeart to resolve only to have new problems since December 2013.

In short, I'm almost back to health, only my fitness has been the work in progress as I've gone from 185+ pounds to ~150 lbs since January 2013 with a little more weight to lose to get to my fitness goal, all the weight loss from walking nearly 3,300 miles to date (really).

Anyway, I plan resume work on the photo guide as I hope to resume hiking and photographing in Mt. Rainier NP later this spring after a few years of not getting there for a variety of reasons, not least of which was $50 in gas round trip for each trip.

That said, I've updated the webcams for the ones which are down and the broken link to the Camp Muir image (they went to a different server and image file name than the NPS one when it's up for the season).

I noticed OS-X 10.10.2 with the recent security update (March 10, 2015) and Javascript 8 update 40 can be slightly buggy for some reasons, where the pop up window and the image takes a few seconds to display.

Not sure which is the problem or the combination of the two, but then we know Apple and Oracle aren't exactly best friends. I don't test with Apple's javascript since I have Oracle's OS-X version installed as the default, which I recommend because they're a lot faster with updates to fix bugs or security problems.

Anyway, there will be more over the coming months as I get back to health and working again.

Weather Apps

Update.--The weather app Intellicast will be discontinued in the near future. The company is merging their app into the weather app Storm. This app has a lot of the same features and tools, just different in presentation, so it's a good one to replace Intellicast.

Original Post.--There are a lot of weather applications for iPhones and iPads (which I own one of each) and I often buy them to see what they offer and have with the applications, especially the number of sites around where I live and the state of Washington and around the world.

While I have probably about half a dozen or so, I only keep 3-4 on my iPhone and iPad in addition to the Yahoo one that comes with the iPhone/iPad which is really a waste and ignore. The other three are the Yahoo expanded app, the Weather Live app and the Intellicast HD app. The extra one for my iPad is MyRadar.

So what my thoughts on them? For one the Yahoo expanded app is ok and worth keeping for the immediate weather where you live or want to travel. It's easy to use and has a wide range of local, national and global sites.

The MyRadar app is good for what it offers, which is the high resolution last 90 minute radar image for the home or where you're at. As a note about weather apps, I turn off the location access for this and the other weather apps so it always defaults to my home and I add other sites I commonly travel.

Weather Live is a good app for the simplicity and presentation, although the data isn't as extensive as other apps. What I used to like about is that it had some of the lesser known weather sites, such as Ashford, Washington, which is a few mile west of the Nisqually (Longmire) to Mt. Rainier NP.

The National Weather Service (NWS) has an official weather station at Ashford, which would be good for travellers see the actual weather up to the hour for this area, but this site is often not working or data not available.

With that in mind, Weather Live gets their data from the Weather Underground and their Ashford weather site is not the NWS but one north of Ashford, meaning it doesn't offer actual data through the app but just forecasts. Historical and current data is available from their Website.

What interested me about this app is that it offered the Paradise Inn Weather site, which I thought was the NPS-NWS weather site, but it's not that site but Crystal Mountain Resort, which is the commercial ski resort just northeast of the northeast (White River) entrance.

You can get the actual data for Paradise Inn if you're going there, along with Longmire inside the southwest enterance which is kept open everyday except for unusual weather conditions, eg. snow, floods, etc. Otherwise, remember the Weather Live Paradise Inn isn't what they advertise.

The best weather app I've found and use is Intellicast HD, especially on the iPad. It has tons of information and forecasts. While some of the details, like timing of rain, is often off at times, it's been a good app to plan walking trips around the area.

This apps has excellent maps with all sorts of overlays, with past recent data or forecast data, along with hourly and 10-day forecasts. This app also uses Weather Underground for data, which is one of the three major sources of weather data.

Anyway, that's what I've found so far. And while I like the Weather Live for it's simplicity and thought it was very useful for visitors to Mt. Rainier NP, I have second thoughts the weather sites they use, the Ashford site isn't an official one and the Paradise Inn is actually Crystal Mountain Resort.

And for that I wouldn't recommend it for visitors, and maybe skiers to the resort. I would use the NWS Website and bookmark the individual weather sites in and around Mt.Rainier NP.

Map App

A application developer has a map application for USFS and BLM campgrounds, iTunes Web page, which costs all of $2 in the iTunes app store. And while it's cheap, I have to say it's only about worth the money you pay for it.

The app is based on Google Maps and indexes of US Forest Service (USFS) and Bureau of Land Management (BLM) campground in western states. For that the app does a good job as well as providing links to additional information about each campground.

What I found to dislike about the app is that it doesn't save a start map and place when you open the app. It resorts to the  world maps, then a map of North America based on your current location. You have to go to the "set current location" window to click the place you set for your preferred place.

This could be resolved by just saving the map and location information. The second is that, despite having a checkbox for "walk/hike in" campsites, it doesn't have any. All the USFS campground are all drive-in sites. Or at least the areas I've looked at.

The main area I checked was Mt. Rainier NP. All the campgrounds are accessible by car, and only those on maps of the Forest Service forest or Wilderness Areas around Mt. Rainier NP.  This is in part because the backcountry campsites are only on other maps but are listed in guides and other publications.

This means detailed information isn't readily available to put into an app like this one. So if you're looking for backcountry campsites in USFS forests or BLM lands, this isn't the app for you. Your best bet is USGS topographic maps and hiking books.

The last minor inconvenience is that it leaves the icon on your dock. If you don't want it, you have to trash it and keep remembering to remove it everytime you close the app. This should be a user setting or not keep it and let the user put it there from the applications folder.

Aside from these things the app is good for what it does and if you travel a lot and use car accessible USFS and BLM campgrounds, this is a good app for $2.

Updated Book

Peggy Goldman has updated her book, "Washington Scrambles", published by the Mountaineers and available in both print and e-book (PDF) formats. The book has 8 scrambles in Mt. Rainier NP, most of them in the northeast quadrant of the NP.

The book has an 18-page introduction and overview of the scrambles, all of which are non-technical hikes and scrambles, but some hiking and scramble experience is preferred. The chapter has advise for the various possible conditions for the hiker, weather and other factors.

The book has an overview of the presentation of the areas and scrambles in the book. The scrambles for Mt. Rainier NP are:

Echo Rock and Observation Rock - Northwest
Mount Ruth - Northeast
Goat Island Mountain - Northeast
Banshee Peak - Northeast
Governors Ridge and Barrier Peak - Northeast
The Palisades and Marcus Peak - Northeast
Tatoosh Traverse - Southeast
Mount Wow - Southwest

The book has excellent descriptions of the trail and scramble with map with each scramble. The book covers the whole state where only about 20 pages are devoted to scrambles in Mt. Rainier NP which makes the e-book nice if all you want is a specific area than the whole state.