Paradise is the name of an area at approximately on the south slope of

Mount Rainier Mount Rainier (), indigenously known as Tahoma, Tacoma, Tacobet, or təqʷubəʔ, is a large active stratovolcano in the Cascade Range of the Pacific Northwest, located in Mount Rainier National Park about south-southeast of Seattle. With a s ...

in Mount Rainier National Park in Washington, United States. Southeast of Seattle, the area lies on the border of

Pierce Pierce may refer to: Places Canada * Pierce Range, a mountain range on Vancouver Island, British Columbia United States * Pierce, Colorado * Pierce, Idaho * Pierce, Illinois * Pierce, Kentucky * Pierce, Nebraska * Pierce, Texas * Pierce, We ...

and Lewis counties and includes the Paradise Valley and the

Paradise Glacier Paradise Glacier is a glacier on the southeast flank of Mount Rainier in Washington. It covers and contains 0.8 billion ft3 (23 million m3) with Stevens Glacier included. The glacier is bounded to the west by the Muir Snowfield, Anvil Rock and M ...

, the source of the

Paradise River ''For the Canadian community, see Paradise River, Newfoundland and Labrador'' The Paradise River is a small, short but swift river in Pierce County, Washington. It is the first major tributary of the Nisqually River. Located entirely within the ...

. Virinda Longmire named Paradise in the summer of 1885 while she viewed the wildflowers in the

alpine meadow Alpine tundra is a type of natural region or biome that does not contain trees because it is at high elevation, with an associated harsh climate. As the latitude of a location approaches the poles, the threshold elevation for alpine tundra gets ...

s there. Paradise also offers views of Mount Rainier and the

Tatoosh Range The Tatoosh Range is a mountain range located in Mount Rainier National Park and the adjacent Tatoosh Wilderness in the state of Washington, in the Pacific Northwest region of the United States.Mandrake"Tatoosh Range."SummitPost.org, 2006. Accesse ...

."Building isn't quite paradise.''
''Eugene Register-Guard,'' June 14, 1999. Accessed on July 15, 2011, from Google News Archive.

Tourism and history

Paradise is the most popular destination for visitors to Mount Rainier National Park. 62% of the over 1.3 million people who visited the park in 2000 went to Paradise. The road from the Nisqually entrance of the National Park to Paradise ( State Route 706) is one of the few roads in the park open to automobiles in the winter. Paradise is the location of the historic

Paradise Inn Paradise Inn is a historic hotel built in 1916 at on the south slope of Mount Rainier in Mount Rainier National Park in Washington, United States. The inn is named after Paradise, the area of the mountain in which it is located. The Henry M. J ...

(built 1916),

Paradise Guide House In religion, paradise is a place of exceptional happiness and delight. Paradisiacal notions are often laden with pastoral imagery, and may be cosmogonical or eschatological or both, often compared to the miseries of human civilization: in paradis ...

(built 1920) and Henry M. Jackson Visitor Center (built 1966; replaced 2008; original building demolished 2009). The inn is listed in the National Register of Historic Places. The historic center of Paradise was designated the

Paradise Historic District The Paradise Historic District comprises the historic portion of Paradise developed area of Mount Rainier National Park. The subalpine district surrounds its primary structure, the Paradise Inn, a rustic-style hotel built in 1917 to accommodate ...

A golf course was built in the area in 1931; five years later, a rope tow for

alpine skiing Alpine skiing, or downhill skiing, is the pastime of sliding down snow-covered slopes on skis with fixed-heel bindings, unlike other types of skiing ( cross-country, Telemark, or ski jumping), which use skis with free-heel bindings. Whether for ...

was installed. These were both added as facilities for use by the guests of the inn. From 1942 to 1943, the U.S. Army used the inn to house troops ( 87th Mountain Infantry) training for winter mountain conditions. The National Park Service undertook a two-year, $30 million project to perform renovations and structural work to allow the inn withstand a large earthquake and to replace the "flying saucer-shaped" Henry M. Jackson Visitor Center with a new building of the same name complementing the historic lodge. The inn re-opened in 2008, along with the new visitor center. The old visitor center was demolished in 2009. Skyline trail looking south

Climate

The National Park Service says that "Paradise is the snowiest place on Earth where snowfall is measured regularly." of snow fell during the winter of 1971–1972, setting a world record at the time. The minimum annual snowfall at Paradise was 266 inches in the winter of 2014–15, and the maximum snowpack was 367 inches (30.6 ft, 9.3 m) on March 9–10, 1956. No snowfall measurements were made from 1943 to 1946 as the road to Paradise was closed during World War II. The high snowfall is in spite of no month recording average highs below freezing. Under the Köppen climate classification Paradise has a subpolar oceanic climate that may also be described as ''

subarctic The subarctic zone is a region in the Northern Hemisphere immediately south of the true Arctic, north of humid continental regions and covering much of Alaska, Canada, Iceland, the north of Scandinavia, Siberia, and the Cairngorms. Generally, ...

'' or '' subalpine''.

References

Bibliography

External links

Mount Rainier National Park - Paradise (U.S. National Park Service)
- Paradise area of the National Park from the National Park Service.

- Construction at the Paradise Inn and the Henry M. Jackson Visitor Center. {{authority control Landmarks in Washington (state) Geography of Pierce County, Washington Tourist attractions in Pierce County, Washington Mount Rainier National Park Unincorporated communities in Washington (state)