OLYMPIC NATIONAL PARK — A popular tubing and sliding area for older children and adults at Hurricane Ridge is too dangerous to be opened this winter season, park officials said.

But Olympic National Park managers are interested in hearing suggestions for alternative sites to the Sunrise Family Snowplay Area at a public workshop Oct. 15

The decision to close the area, which is for children older than 8 years and their families, also will be explained at the workshop, set from 5:30 p.m. to 7 p.m. at the Olympic National Park Visitor Center, 3002 Mount Angeles Road, Port Angeles, said Barb Maynes, park spokeswoman.

Remaining open this season will be the Small Children’s Snowplay Area, a site west of the Hurricane Ridge Visitor Center that allows tubing and sliding for children 8 years old and younger.

Parking hazards

Park officials decided to close the Sunrise area, which is on Hurricane Ridge Road about one mile north of the Ridge visitor center, primarily because of parking hazards, Maynes said.

“We really have no choice but to close that site.

“It’s just too dangerous to continue,” Maynes said.

“Primarily the location, and where the parking is, are the most dangerous things about it.”

Parking is by the side of the road, which both narrows the driving lane, and forces some visitors to walk down the road to get to the sliding area.

“Most vehicles [parked by the roadside] were actually quite far out into the lane,” Maynes said.

And, “because there’s no parking there, you have people parking 100 feet above or below the tubing area, and walking” with traffic passing on slick roads, she said.

Changes to road

The problem was exacerbated by changes to Hurricane Ridge Road during a $12 million resurfacing and rehabilitation project in 2008.

“When the Hurricane Ridge Road was repaved and brought up to federal standards, changes were made to the shoulder of the road,” Maynes said.

“What that did was make it even more difficult in the winter to get off the road when they are parking.”

Worries about the possibility of serious injury — although none had happened — prompted the closure, Maynes said.

“So you have a large number of vehicles parked along the road, making the road narrower, and you have people walking on the road, and cars going up and down the hill in slick conditions, and we just took another look at that, particularly in the change in parking conditions, and said we just can’t allow this to happen anymore.”

Referring to the “extremely hazardous situation,” in a prepared statement, Olympic National Park Superintendent Karen Gustin said, “Unfortunately, the unsafe location of this site means that we must close the Sunrise Snowplay area.”

Sliding into road

Another risk — although rare — of the Sunrise area is that, with icy conditions or if tubes are piled with a lot of people or start sliding high on the slope, they can slide into the road, Maynes said.

“Park staff has managed that quite closely. But it does still occasionally happen,” she said.

The sliding area had not been as popular recently as it was a number of years ago, Maynes said.

Only tubes and plastic disks were permitted there. No sleds with runners were allowed.

A snowboarding area is part of the Hurricane Ridge downhill ski area, Maynes said.

But the sliding area was still a draw for many families.

“We know that people enjoy it, and we do want people to know we’re very interested in knowing if people have alternative ideas” for another site, Maynes said.

Because of the potential for serious injury, tubing and sliding are permitted only at designated areas that are monitored and managed, she said.

For more information on Hurricane Ridge activities, see the park’s Web site at www.nps.gov/olym/index.htm.