Our Adventure cover is all about boating and Mount Rainier.

Our lead story offers tips from local sailors on some of the best places to go sailing in the area, for a day trip or an overnighter. It’s part of our Tall Ships Week in the SoundLife section.

We have a story with tips on how to stay safe while boating, especially during the busy holiday weekend. We have a related story talking about the 26 percent rise in boating fatalities in the Northwest compared to last year.

As for Mount Rainier, I covered Tuesday night’s meeting about the Carbon River Road. The park has come up with three preliminary alternatives for dealing with the flood-damaged road.

You can read the story online now by clicking here.

Inside, this week’s Mount Rainier notebook looks at shuttle ridership numbers and the final snowfall total for the 2007-08 season.

The Summit at Snoqualmie has received the go ahead from the U.S. Forest Service to begin the installation of a new high-speed quad chairlift. The ski are made the announcement this afternoon.

The Silver Fir Express, to be located east of the Central base area, will replace the current Silver Fir triple chair originally installed in 1988. Construction of the new lift is expected to be completed by November, the news release said.

Crews will begin this week taken down the existing Silver Fir triple chairlift. The $4.5 million project will involve the use of a helicopter to install the new chairlift towers.

While this new lift will serve the same terrain as the existing chair, ride times and lift capacities will be improved. The length of ride time will shorten from its current 10-plus minute ride to just over four minutes. Lift capacity will increase to 2,400 skiers per hour, the release said.

Click here to track the progress of the work.

Visitors will have more places to go, sort of, at Mount Rainier National Park starting Thursday.

The road to Sunrise, Sunrise Lodge, snack bar and visitor center will open Thursday. Don’t plan to do much hiking there, however. A park news release said there is 3 to 10 feet of snow still on the ground and trails in the area are generally inaccessible.

Also scheduled to open Thursday is the the White River Campground. That might be delayed because silt from the heavy snow melt is clogging the water system. The release said park maintenance staff are hoping to have the system operating and tested by Thursday. For updates on the campground, call the park at 360-569-2211.

Elsewhere in the park, Mowich Lake Road is open to the Paul Peak Trailhead. Up to 8 feet of snow remains on the road beyond Paul Peak.

Carl Fabiani told me last night that visitors should expect to find snow, lots of it in many places, on any trail above 3,500 to 4,000 feet in elevation.