By Paige Dickerson
Peninsula Daily News
PORT ANGELES — If the money comes through in time, Olympic National Park officials hope to have no interruption between summer and winter access to Hurricane Ridge late this year.
Deputy Superintendent Todd Suess, speaking to about 70 people at the Port Angeles Regional Chamber of Commerce weekly luncheon meeting Monday, said the road remained open 78 out of 105 possible days during the fall-winter season — the first in which Hurricane Ridge Road was plowed seven days a week.
“We did pretty well until about mid-March when we kept getting slammed with snow and the winds just kept on blowing hard,” Suess said.
Throughout the weekdays — Mondays through Thursdays — a total of 4,378 vehicles traversed the road, he said.
Fridays through Sundays — or what used to be the typical season — the number shot up to 6,990.
Until this year, the mile-high ski and snowplay area 17 miles south of Port Angeles was open only Fridays through Sundays.
Fundraising effort
A fundraising effort spearheaded by the city of Port Angeles and the Chamber of Commerce raised more than $75,000 from local business, civic organizations and individuals to keep the road open weekdays.
Contributions included $20,000 from the city of Port Angeles, $20,000 from Clallam County and $5,000 from the city of Sequim,
The Interior Department is providing $250,000 in matching funds on a trial basis for up to three years.
Olympic National Park hired and trained an additional four-person plowing crew to work the 12-mile stretch of Hurricane Ridge Road from Heart O’ the Hills campground to 5,242-foot high Hurricane Ridge.
The road, first opened in 1958, provides the only paved access to the subalpine zone of the Olympic Mountains.
Tour van
All Points Charters and Tours owner Willie Nelson, whose 12-person van operates twice daily between Port Angeles and Hurricane Ridge Lodge from Wednesdays through Saturdays, operated at about 15 percent of capacity, Suess said.
A total of 92 people rode the 9:30 a.m. shuttles, and 78 people rode the 12:30 p.m. service, he said.
With a possible 1,104 possible passengers and a total of 170 actual passengers, there was room for growth, he said.
Suess said the park is also studying data from the winter to evaluate whether it was valuable to tourists for the road to be open throughout the week.
“We do know that 22 percent of weekday visitors have day passes and 33 percent of weekend visitors have day passes — which means the rest have some sort of annual pass,” Suess said.
“That could indicate that there are people who have day passes haven’t been here before or are locals who haven’t bought an annual pass, and those with an annual pass are returning people and are coming back on a recurring basis.”
That would indicate that most of the weekday visitors were from the local area.
“We do know, just anecdotally, that we have a strong constituency of people who like to visit almost on a daily basis because we’ll see the same cars up there,” he said.
He also suggested that people check out the Hurricane Ridge webcam to see what conditions look like at the top and what visibility will be like when ascending, he said.
The webcam is available at http://tinyurl.com/yj9tmsw.
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Reporter Paige Dickerson can be reached at 360-417-3535 or at paige.dickerson@peninsuladailynews.com.