Pass closes, park still open
Jerry Stout of Dunedin, Fla., hikes down the Avalanche Lake Trail with his cousin Sandy Collins of Lander, Wyo., on Thursday afternoon in Glacier National Park. The cousins were visiting the park for the first time. Jennifer DeMonte/Daily Inter Lake
By JIM MANN
The Daily Inter Lake
A big stretch of Glacier National Park's Going-to-the-Sun Road will close tonight, making room for heavy road construction work in weeks to come.
The road will be closed for the season to motorists at 10 p.m. today from Avalanche Campground on the west side of the park to Siyeh Bend on the east side.
After the gates go up, hikers and bikers will be able to travel about six miles beyond Avalanche to the Packer's Roost Road. And except for the stretch of high-altitude highway spanning Logan Pass, the rest of Glacier Park will remain open to visitors.
The shoulder-season closure will allow for major storm-damage repairs east of Logan Pass plus road rehabilitation work that will involve removing both lanes of road in several places west of the pass.
"There will be a lot of stuff going on up there, a lot of work," said John Schnaderbeck, a Federal Highway Administration engineer who is managing the work. "Not having traffic up there will definitely help us accelerate our work."
Schnaderbeck estimates there will be a four-to-six week window for repairs and reconstruction.
Eventually, foul weather will shut down work and the road until next spring. It was early last November when heavy rains caused a series of washouts on the road. A few days later, damaged areas on the road were buried in snow.
Starting on Monday, contract crews will work 24 hours a day, seven days a week, repairing storm damage just below the East Tunnel. The biggest task will be removing a temporary bridge that spanned a gaping washout in the road during the summer.
After the bridge is removed, construction of a retaining wall will get under way to support a reconstructed road. Retaining walls will be built at two other locations in the same area.
Schnaderbeck said the bridge needs to be removed before winter because of the potential for avalanches at that location.
"There's a danger of a large avalanche coming down and knocking that bridge over the edge," he said. "If it did get knocked over the edge, it would be very difficult to get it back up on the road."
West of Logan Pass, the first major phase of a comprehensive road reconstruction plan will be accelerated because of the ability to work on both lanes of road.
Schnaderbeck said that work will involve retaining wall construction, road replacement work and masonry work mainly in areas where the road is too narrow to do the work one lane at a time.
Road reconstruction between the West Tunnel and Haystack Creek is expected to continue throughout next year, followed by another work phase that will concentrate on the road either above Haystack Creek or below the West Tunnel, Schnaderbeck said.
The overall road reconstruction project is expected to span the next six to eight years.
During future shoulder seasons, however, Logan Pass will be open either from the east or the west. This year that was not possible because of the storm damage repairs in the East Tunnel area.
Reporter Jim Mann may be reached at 758-4407 or by e-mail at jmann@dailyinterlake.com