Mount Rainier in April

Mount Rainier in April is a winter park that happens to have spring in the valley. At Paradise, 5,400 feet up, the snowpack in April is routinely twelve to fifteen feet deep and the buildings are dug out rather than swept. At Longmire, 3,500 feet lower, the moss is green and the rain is falling.

Both of those are the same day at the same park, and knowing which one you are driving into is the whole trick.

What is open

• The Nisqually Entrance and the road to Longmire are open all year, and this is the only year-round entrance.
• The road up to Paradise is normally open during the day in April, gated overnight, and closed without much notice when it is snowing. It is plowed daily by a crew working through banks well over the height of the truck. Carry chains: the park requires all vehicles to have them in the car through the winter season, four wheel drive included, and rangers do check.
• Stevens Canyon Road, the road to Sunrise, and Chinook and Cayuse Passes are all closed. Sunrise does not usually open until late June or July. If your plan involved Sunrise, it is not happening in April.

No timed entry, and nobody there

The park's summer timed entry system is not running in April. You drive up, you pay the entrance fee or show your pass, and you go. Compared with a July morning when the Paradise lot is full by nine and you need a reservation to get through the gate, this is a different park entirely. See how timed entry works for the summer contrast.

What you can actually do

Snowshoe from Paradise. This is the main event. The slopes above the visitor centre are open, rolling and enormous, and in good weather you get the Tatoosh Range across the valley and the mountain itself standing over you. Ranger-led snowshoe walks run on winter weekends in most years and are worth booking. Go in a whiteout and you will see nothing at all, so watch the forecast rather than the calendar.

Walk the plowed road. Somewhere between Longmire and Paradise the banks reach two storeys and the road becomes a corridor. It is a strange, quiet, extremely photogenic thing to walk in the early morning before the traffic starts.

Reflection Lakes, frozen. The lakes freeze solid and hold snow, and on a still evening the mountain stands over a flat white plain where the water should be. The Stevens Canyon Road access is closed in April, so this is a snowshoe approach, not a drive-up.

Longmire and the low forest. Rain-forest walking with no snow at all, for the days when the upper mountain is socked in. The Trail of the Shadows loop takes half an hour and is open year round.

What to bring

Snowshoes or at minimum microspikes, and poles. Waterproof everything, because April at Rainier is often 34 degrees and raining at Longmire while it snows at Paradise. Sunglasses and sunscreen, which people forget in April and regret on a bluebird day over that much snow. Chains in the car, by law. Something dry to change into.

Where to stay

The in-park campgrounds are all closed in April, opening in late May at the earliest. The National Park Inn at Longmire is open year round and is the only in-park lodging in winter. Otherwise you are in Ashford, just outside the Nisqually Entrance, where the cabins are open and cheap in April in a way they never are in July.

Would we go?

Yes, and we have. April is the trade: you lose Sunrise, the wildflowers, the Skyline Trail and every high traverse, and you get a mountain with almost nobody on it, no reservation system, deep clean snow, and lodging at half the summer rate. If you want the postcard meadow, come in late July. If you want the mountain to yourself, come now.