Improving Paradise with a new $22 million visitor center

By Chester Allen | The Olympian • Published October 09, 2008

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On Sept. 17, rangers at the Henry M. Jackson Memorial Visitor Center's climbing desk posted a little cartoon of a flying saucer lifting off from the steep alpine slopes of Paradise and zipping off into space.

It seemed an appropriate sendoff for the visitor center — which opened in space-happy 1966 and resembled a docked flying saucer. The building, which closed Sept. 28, is set for demolition in the spring.

The new $22 million visitor center, in the upper parking lot at Paradise at Mount Rainier National Park, opens Friday.

But the change doesn't end there.

All of the old center's aging displays — the dusty, taxidermy animals; the small, fuzzy televisions showing how water and natural acids are eating away at the mountain's lava rock; the photographs of early mountaineering pioneers — will go away, too.

The new center will feature brand-new, state-of-the-art displays and a new, 22-minute movie about the park. The exhibits are the result of eight years of work and $2 million, said Patti Wold, park exhibit specialist.

"The old exhibits at the Jackson Visitor Center have been there quite a while," she said. "The new exhibits reach out to people and use current research and the latest information."

That's why ranger Curt Jacquot is excited about the move. He has worked at the park since 1990.

"I've seen most of the exhibits, they're much more hands-on. People will be able to connect with the park better," Jacquot said.

Jim French of the Olympia Mountaineers, recently peered at the new center from a lofty vantage point in the Tatoosh Range. He has high hopes for the new displays.

"I've always enjoyed videos — the visual presentation is very interesting to me — and the big diorama of the park in the old visitor center always had a few folks standing around it," he said.

French will get plenty of new videos and a high-tech diorama that uses lights to show locations and seasonal closures in the park.

"You can press a button, and the entire Wonderland Trail will light up," Wold said. "People love these maps, as they can see where they are, where they've been and what they want to do."