"This is early melting in the West?"

Sound Politics: If You Like To Play In The Snow

Now is a good time to visit Mt. Rainier...

According to the park's phone message, there are now 60 inches of snow on the ground at the Paradise Visitor Center. That's a bit misleading because, though there is that much snow at the weather station where they make the official measurements, there are also bare spots, as you can see in that picture. And some of the bare spots have flowers. So, in some places you can ski along, as I did yesterday, enjoying the corn snow — and admiring the spirea, the glacier lilies, and many other flowers.