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Sarah Ruppenthal and her family left the Gateway Inn early on Aug. 5 for a day of hiking at Mount Rainier National Park in Washington. When they returned around 1 p.m., the hotel they had checked into the night before was roped off. Utility workers and others outside the property stopped Ruppenthal, her husband and their two teenage sons and told them they needed to get their belongings and leave. The electricity was being shut off. “We had to hurry and rinse off by phone light and pack up to leave,” Ruppenthal told SFGATE Friday. Advertisement Article continues below this ad The family had planned the trip months earlier as part of a larger loop through Washington and Oregon. Luckily, Ruppenthal found a last-minute room at the nearby Nisqually Lodge, allowing the family to salvage the rest of their time at Mount Rainier before continuing toward the Columbia River Gorge. But the replacement room cost more, and more than two weeks later, she said she still had not received a refund for the Gateway Inn stay. The abrupt evacuation was the result of a Pierce County enforcement action that had been building for months. Advertisement Article continues below this ad On Aug. 5, the county “posted all buildings at the Gateway Inn in Ashford as Unsafe and Do Not Occupy and ordered everyone on the property to leave immediately,” Pierce County spokesperson Christina Rohila told SFGATE in an emailed statement Thursday. Officials also coordinated the disconnection of utilities. The county said it took the action after finding that the inn had resumed renting rooms despite unresolved life-safety violations that had prompted county officials to close its lodging units in February. Those violations included “dangerous electrical conditions, non-working smoke detectors, unsafe exits, chimney problems that created smoke and carbon-monoxide risks, and unpermitted construction.” “These violations remain uncorrected,” Rohila said. During more recent inspections, county staff also found that previously posted enforcement notices had been removed and had to be reposted, Rohila said. “The conditions identified during multiple inspections create significant safety risks,” Rohila said. “This enforcement action is necessary to protect residents, visitors, and first responders until the property meets applicable safety requirements.” Advertisement Article continues below this ad The Gateway Inn cannot reopen until the violations are corrected, the required permits are issued and the property passes all inspections, according to the county. As of Friday, the Gateway Inn’s website still made no mention of the closure and continued to advertise rooms and link visitors to a reservation system. SFGATE called the hotel and several phone numbers associated with its owners but received no response. Advertisement Article continues below this ad Even after the county cleared the property and shut off its utilities, travelers with existing reservations were still making their way toward Ashford without knowing they no longer had a place to stay. News Travel Education | Crime Read our stories ad-free on the new SFGATE app. Three days after Ruppenthal hurriedly packed her family's belongings by phone light, Marilyn Mitchell arrived at the Gateway Inn after roughly 13 hours of flying and driving. She and her family had watched Mount Rainier grow larger throughout the drive from Seattle, excited for the weeklong national park trip ahead. The plan was to check in to the Gateway Inn, drop their bags and recover from the long travel day before heading out to explore. Advertisement Article continues below this ad They never made it inside. The doors were locked, and closure notices greeted them at the entrance. “It was a nightmare,” Mitchell told SFGATE by phone Thursday. “We hadn’t received any sort of notification of a closure from anyone — and we were exhausted.” With little to no cell service near the inn, Mitchell, her husband and their son drove farther into Mount Rainier until they reached the Paradise area, where they were finally able to get enough service to start looking for somewhere else to stay. By then, it was already evening, and nearby lodging options were scarce. Mitchell said they called several hotels, but all were booked. Eventually, they found a last-minute Airbnb — a sprawling rental designed to sleep 14 people — that happened to be available that night. Advertisement Article continues below this ad It was far more space than the family of three needed, but it was the only same-day option they could find. “We were incredibly lucky,” Mitchell said. “I know that a lot of people weren’t able to make new plans so quickly.” Two weeks later, other Mount Rainier visitors are still describing the same last-minute scramble, and in some cases learning from strangers on Facebook that the hotel they expected to stay at is no longer open. In the days since the closure, Mount Rainier travel groups on Facebook have seen a flurry of activity, with warnings from guests, questions from people with upcoming reservations and pleas for help finding somewhere else to stay. Advertisement Article continues below this ad The disruption has continued even after travelers find new lodgings. Some visitors say they have been forced to go back and forth with third-party booking sites trying to secure refunds for canceled stays. Mitchell, who booked through Hotels.com, said she is still trying to recover the money she paid for the Gateway Inn and has also filed a claim with her travel insurance to cover the cost difference of her last-minute replacement lodging. So far, she said, neither process has been resolved. Taylor Simpson, who was visiting all of Washington’s national parks on a trip from San Antonio, had a somewhat smoother experience. Expedia notified him just days before his trip that his reservation had been canceled, giving him enough time to find a more-expensive room at National Park Inn inside the park. Advertisement Article continues below this ad “I had to stop working to find something real quick,” Simpson told SFGATE. “It was super stressful.” Expedia ultimately covered the price difference, Simpson said, but he noted that if he had missed the email, he likely would have arrived at the Gateway Inn without knowing it was closed. For Mitchell, the frustration comes down to communication. She said she understands that unexpected problems can force a hotel to close or change travelers’ plans. What bothered her was making it all the way from Philadelphia to the Gateway Inn without anyone telling her that the room her family expected to sleep in was unavailable. Advertisement Article continues below this ad “It's insult to injury with the bad communication,” Mitchell said. “There was plenty of time to notify us.” Once they finally had somewhere to sleep, Mitchell and her family tried to put the difficulty behind them. They spent the next day exploring Mount Rainier, hiking around Paradise and taking in the views that had excited them so much on the drive in. “The majesty of the park overcame the headache,” she said. Advertisement Article continues below this ad From Rainier, the family continued on to Olympic National Park, where they visited Lake Crescent, explored the Hoh Rain Forest and checked out tide pools along the park’s coast. In the end, Mitchell said, the rocky start didn’t ruin the trip. But finding a last-minute place to stay near Mount Rainier can be especially difficult during the summer, when huge numbers of visitors are competing for limited lodging, parking and space inside the park. BECOME A FRIEND. GET OUR AD-FREE APP. Mount Rainier recorded more than 2.4 million visitors in 2025, according to National Park Service figures. And this summer, those crowds have fewer places to spread out. Advertisement Article continues below this ad The park dropped the timed-entry reservation system it had tested during the previous two summers, instead warning visitors to expect long entrance lines and full parking lots during busy periods. Access elsewhere in the park has also been squeezed: the Carbon River and Mowich Lake areas remain inaccessible by vehicle because of the Fairfax Bridge closure, while the Grand Park 2 Fire has forced the closure of Sunrise and White River roads and the trails reached from them. That has concentrated even more summer traffic around the portions of Mount Rainier that remain easily accessible — including the Paradise corridor just beyond the Gateway Inn. — National park ranger quits, tours visitor centers to fight censorship — 30-year-old who set El Capitan speed record dies in national park climbing accident — Near Mount Rainier, mysterious sightings continue to baffle the public — Calif. marmot researchers turn to OnlyFans as their funding dries up We love national parks just as much as you do, so we have a newsletter that covers them from top to bottom. Sign up here. Advertisement Article continues below this ad