Paradise Inn has an avalanche of drawbacks

It's not often that a single question dropped into the Big Gore-Tex Outdoors Mailbag can set us off on a rant that consumes an entire Trail Mix. So buckle up and consider this a special occasion.

Q: We're from Ohio, and recently saw one of your pieces about Mount Rainier National Park on the Web. We're planning to visit next summer. Because we'll be flying in, we've decided to leave all the camping gear at home and spend a week in lodging in and around the park. (We've done the same with very good results at Glacier and Crater Lake parks.) Any advice?

A: Save plenty of money and lower your expectations. In between camping trips, we've sampled a lot of the lodging at U.S. national parks, with mixed results. To be fair, you have to expect to pay relatively premium prices for warm beds in national parks, where space is always in high demand. And you can't expect the same comforts you're likely to get for the same price elsewhere.

But most national-park-lodge prices don't qualify as unseemly, and in many cases, the experience of staying in a warm, cozy lodge in spectacular surroundings makes them feel worth every penny. Seeming inconveniences — small rooms with creaky radiators and no phones, TVs or other amenities — can feel quite charming at these memorable places. Lodges in Yellowstone National Park in Wyoming and Glacier National Park in Montana fit this bill, as does the recently renovated Crater Lake Lodge in Oregon and even Rainier's cozy National Park Inn at Longmire.

Sadly, the same cannot be said of what could be Rainier's showcase: The rustic (capital R, in this case) 117-room Paradise Inn, which on recent visits proved to be not only a step below typical concessionaire-operated national-parks lodging, but an outright embarrassment.

The inn, booked solid throughout its summers-only operating season, is standing proof of everything that's wrong with concession-run park lodging: The proprietors don't care, because they don't have to.

True, the main lobby at the inn, a historic landmark built in 1917, is quaint and woodsy, and the concessionaire, Mount Rainier Guest Services, has spruced up the outside by replacing the massive cedar-shake roof this summer. And there's only so much you can do with an old, weathered building that gets hammered by winter weather that would send a polar bear into therapy. But the truth is the place has all the charm of a badly neglected youth hostel.

Cramped rooms — $129 a night for the version with a private bath — are lined with delightful faux-woodgrain vinyl siding we haven't seen in such copious quantities since Greg set up his hip 1970s bachelor pad on "The Brady Bunch." Institutional ceiling panels — look up in your office for a comparable example — are warped and uneven. Walls are crooked; conversations are clearly audible through walls. Amazingly, for an inn a stone's throw from Rainier, few if any rooms actually offer views of the mountain.

All of this might be forgivable if the place could offer up a decent meal, or even something less than a collective grimace from the staff, which clearly has received intensive in-house training only in shoulder shrugging. The dining rooms serve up $20-to-$30 entrees, each of which, on a good day, is about two satisfaction levels below a seriously under-nuked Lean Cuisine.

Even the wait staff waves the white flag of surrender.

"Hmph. Not a very good dish," our server said of one entree — one of only about five choices. "I get a lot of complaints about it."

Deservedly so, it turns out.

Sadly, a night or two at the Paradise Inn is seen as a highlight of Northwest visits by out-of-towners and foreigners. It's sad to consider the vision of Northwest hospitality they must take away when they check out of the place.

The overall experience here can be so bad that not even Rainier in its full glory can really make up for it. And it's extremely puzzling, given that the same concessionaire seems to do an overall fine job at the nearby, much-smaller, National Park Inn — thankfully, the one Rainier lodge open all year.

So what's left? The National Park Inn, 360-569-2275, has its own minor flaws, but manages to achieve the homey, old-lodge feel the Paradise Inn cannot. But be warned: It has only 25 rooms, and they can be hard to come by.

A pleasant base for exploring the north side of the park — Chinook Pass, the Ohanapecosh area and the White River/Sunrise area are all an hour or less away — is Alta Crystal Resort (www.altacrystalresort.com; 800-277-6475) on Highway 410, just outside the park's northern entrance. It offers condo-style rooms and cabins with fireplaces, kitchens, an all-season pool and hot tub, and other amenities, including a friendly staff. It's not cheap, ranging from $129 to $188 in summer. But at least you get something for your money.

All of this, in our eyes, points to the need to boost Mount Rainier lodging the old-fashioned, all-American way: With some larger-scale competition, outside park boundaries. But that's another column.

Final word of advice: Please don't let any of this discussion deter you from visiting.

A glimpse from our windows this week says it all: Rainier's a gorgeous peak, and it's a grand park. Not even Mount Rainier Guest Services can screw that up.

Ron C. Judd's outdoors columns appear in Sunday's sports section and Thursday's Northwest Weekend section. Phone: 206-464-8280; e-mail rjudd@seattletimes.com.