Whitefish Divide roads in rough shape

Some rain-damaged forest routes may not open until 2008

The Daily Inter Lake

Several major Forest Service roads at the north end of the Whitefish Divide are impassable because of erosion damage from severe rainstorms last fall, and some on the Kootenai National Forest may remain impassable well into 2008.

The closed roads include the Grave Creek-Trail Creek road, the northernmost route that crosses the Whitefish Divide.

The Kootenai National Forest is reporting "extensive damage" at Drip Creek and Nokio Creek on the Flathead side of the divide, "where the entire road surface over the culverts washed away."

Last week, a contracted engineering firm started surveying the damaged areas on the Kootenai side of the divide. Once the surveys are complete, the forest will take proposals from construction contractors to begin repairs.

"Repairs will be done as soon as possible but may not be completed until sometime in 2008," a Kootenai Forest press release states.

Roads currently closed to wheeled motorized travel include: a portion of Grave Creek-Trail Creek Road No. 114 north of the road's junction with Blue Sky Trail No. 74, to the boundary between Kootenai National Forest and Flathead National Forest; Trail Creek Road at Nokio Creek; and all of Therriault Lakes Road No. 319.

The washout at Nokio Creek is "impassable," said Flathead Forest public affairs officer Denise Germann, but forest officials expect that damage to be repaired and the road reopened before the end of July.

The Kootenai Forest release said that once those repairs are complete, the Grave Creek-Trail Creek road will be passable by high-clearance vehicles and the road closure order would be modified. The Therriault Lakes road would still be impassable and would remain closed until the repairs are completed.

The North Lincoln County Chapter of Montanans for Multiple Use has volunteered to lay filter cloth and rock on the damaged fill slope near one area in an effort to reduce the potential for additional damage.

At the same time the group will place some sandbags in the same area in an attempt to divert a secondary stream channel away from the road and back into the original channel. The Forest Service is providing the filter cloth, staples and rock.