Single? Love might be waiting for you on a chairlift in Oregon.

Mount Hood Meadows is hosting its annual  “Chairway 2 Heaven” – speed dating on its Blue chairlift this Sunday.

The lift will have two “singles” lines, one for women and one for men. People from each line will be randomly paired for a lift ride. When the ride continues at the top of the hill, the couple decide if they want to continue skiing together or hop back in line for another speed date.

The event is from noon to 4 p.m. and is free for those who have …

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Alpental ski area on Snoqualmie Pass will unveil its new two-story David Pettigrew Mountain Safety and Education Center on Saturday afternoon. The 30-minute ceremony will start at 2 p.m. with a tour to follow.

The mid-mountain center will serve as a meeting place for mountain safety and avalanche courses and as an additional ski patrol outpost and dispatch center.

The center is named in honor of David Pettigrew, a long-time snowboarder who died in a snowboarding accident at Alpental in 2005.

“The new structure will meet a growing need for additional meeting space to host a series of popular, free …

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Olympic National Park superintendent Karen Gustin plans to retire March 2. Gustin has been the superintendent at Olympic since 2008.

“I have thoroughly enjoyed working at Olympic National Park,” she said in a prepared statement. “The staff is a great group of people to work with, as are the communities of the Olympic Peninsula.  The community support and our park neighbors have been wonderful here.”

In Gustin’s time at Olympic, the park started the removal of the Elwha River dam, the nationa;s largest dam removal. The project is scheduled to be complete in September 2014. The park has also started …

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So my fitness column this morning was about cold weather running. Of course, today is gorgeous but the cold is sure to return.

If you are a recreational runner logging 15 or miles per week, you can be ready for for a marathon in as little as 16 weeks, according to Tacoma City Marathon organizer Paul Morrison.

Morrison offers a 16-week training guide that he gives to runners at Fleet Feet Sports in Bonney Lake.

While this won’t get you ready quite in time for this year’s Tacoma City Marathon, there are many other marathons in the late …

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Perhaps nobody will be more excited to turn the page on their calendar tonight than the staff at Mount Rainier National Park.

“I would say if there was one word to describe (how the staff is feeling) it would be ‘weary,’” said park volunteer and outreach manager Kevin Bacher. “I’ve heard so many people say, ‘I can’t wait for this winter to be over.’ ”

January has been one of the most tragic months in the 113-year history of the park, but it’s also had some incredible moments. But through the ups and downs it has been consistently emotional.

On …

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The road to Paradise at Mount Rainier National Park opened at 8 a.m. for the first weekend since Jan. 14, when seven people became lost in severe storm conditions.

Three day hikers on snowshoes survived two frigid nights on the mountains, including two featured in today’s News Tribune, while two campers and two mountaineers still have not been found.

The search for the missing four is now considered a “extended, limited, continuous search,” but as many as eight park rangers are searching the Muir Snowfield today for signs of the people.

With the first large group …

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Reeve Petersen was one of about 200 people stranded at Crystal Mountain on Thursday and Friday and he couldn’t have been happier.

“I heard the road might be open tomorrow,” Petersen said this morning after a powder run, “but secretly we’re hoping it’s not.”

Unfortunately for Petersen and fortunately for other skiers and snowboarders around the South Sound, State Route 410 was expected to reopen this evening. Downed trees forced the closure of the road between Federation Forest and Enumclaw early Thursday morning.

“It is awful,” Crystal Mountain spokeswoman Tiana Enger said, feigning distress. “All this powder and nobody to …

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UPDATE 8:40 a.m. – Just got a call from a skier at Crystal who said he has been told state Route 410 will remain closed and that skiers will have the mountain to themselves again today.

Downed trees on state Route 410 turned Crystal Mountain into a private ski area for about 200 people on Thursday. As an added bonus, they’ll have first crack at first tracks today because they likely spent the night, said ski area spokeswoman Justus Hyatt.

Hyatt said she was only aware of guests who stayed at the hotel or nearby cabins who were at the mountain. Hyatt worked from her Seattle home Thursday because she couldn’t get into work. A road closure warning was posted on the website at about 7 a.m., she said.

Note: Among the stranded skiers was News Tribune photographer Janet Jensen, who filed the photos in this post.

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