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Yes, access to the ski resorts has been all but cut off. We also have a number of resort towns, the most notable being Leavenworth, a German themed town, that are dependent upon tourism year round. They are all but cut off as well.
We have five mountain passes over the Cascade range, only two of which remain open through the winter. They are high enough that they do not flood, of course, but they have had some severe mud slides caused by the rapidly melting snow and steady rain, causing them to close as well, temporarily.
It never rains very hard here at all. Just all the time. We don't get the torrential downpours , much less the hurricanes found in other parts of the country. So, to trigger the kind of flooding and mud slides we are experiencing right now, we need to store it up. The early snow pack serves to do just that. The worst thing it can do around here is snow early in our mountains, 'cause we know it's gonna melt, at least a few times, before it gets cold enough to stabilize. Some years are worse than others.
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