MOUNT RAINIER NATIONAL PARK, Wash. — The calendar says summer, but the conditions are more like winter.
Usually by August, most of the snow on Mount Rainier, the sleeping volcanic giant here, has long since melted. The meadows of wildflowers are abloom, and hikers galore are tramping along the trails.
Some folks have said the amount of snow validated predictions that global warming would increase precipitation.
But this year, temperatures have been colder than usual, keeping record mounds of old snow lying around. This has discouraged everyone, from the most rigorous climbers to backpackers, hikers and Sunday drivers.
However, in this article, in the very second paragraph it noted that "this year, temperatures have been colder than usual, keeping record mounds of old snow lying around."
The colder temperatures have wreaked havoc with Mother Nature’s schedule here and throughout the West and the Northwest, altering people’s expectations of what they could and could not do this summer.Yup, more global warming stories like these and Al Gore will need to revise his PowerPoint slides.
“There has never been this amount of snow, and it stopped us from doing things we would usually do,” Carol Larkin, 66, of Richland said the other day as she and her husband, Dave, 67, changed out of their hiking boots at a rest stop beneath towering Douglas firs near the mountain’s base.
They have hiked here every year since 1990 and wanted to keep up their ritual, even if it was curtailed.