Glacier plows claw through final stretches toward pass

Heavy snow was falling less than half a mile from Glacier National Park’s Logan Pass on Monday while the west-side plowing crew continued pushing east through snow as deep as 15 to 20 feet.

Meanwhile, east-side crews are past Lunch Creek and approaching the Big Drift, which sits to the east of Logan Pass and averages about 70 feet of snow.

Christian Tranel, an engineer and equipment operator, said he expected most of the snow depths through the remainder of the arduous annual road-clearing project to be the same as most years. 

He explained that warm weather affected low elevations early in the year, allowing the crews to make quick work clearing the first few miles of the road, where the elevation ranges from 3,500 to 6,000 feet. 

Past that point, however (Logan Pass is at 6,640 feet), he said they could expect snow depths consistent with typical years in the park.

Currently, the plows are about a month ahead of last year’s plowing progress.

However, once the west side of the road is clear to the pass, park spokesman Denise Germann said, the vehicle opening will be delayed about two weeks as crews clear the Logan Pass parking lot, finish replacing guardrails and wrap up other maintenance needs.

Sun Road clearing work actually begins the year prior when guardrails are removed and towering snow poles are placed along the sides of the road to mark its path as snow accumulates throughout the winter.

In the spring, once the path has been defined, a “pioneer” plow works along the top of the snowpack, pushing off the top layer of snow armed with a blade to chop up ice. An excavator follows behind, moving more snow off the road until the remaining depth is less than 9 feet. 

Last, a rotary plow moves in, flinging the snow far off the road. Behind the plows, sweeper trucks push remaining snow and debris from the pavement while a separate team reinstalls wooden guardrails that are removed each fall so they aren’t lost to snow slides.

Jake Hutchinson, an avalanche specialist with the American Avalanche Institute, came to the park when plowing began to assist road crews as they work their way up the winding, avalanche-prone road. 

Glacier Park snowfall last winter was about 80 percent of average, and Hutchinson said that the early warm-up freed much of the avalanche-prone snow from above the road before the crews reached the avalanche chutes.

“The meltdown has been faster this year and we really kind of turned a corner last week,” he said. “But we still had to be careful because we don’t have a lot of history of early warming. Unusual weather makes for unusual avalanches.”

While the crews usually are held up by avalanches at least a couple of times each year, he said a lack of slides and major spring snowstorms have allowed work to continue relatively uninterrupted this spring. Those avalanches that did come down were well ahead of where the crews were working.

Still, rockslides present a year-round danger, evidenced by the debris piled at the bases of cliffs alongside the road. Tranel said the amount of rocks that crews had to clear away was about par for the course, but still present one of the main hazards to the plowing crews.

“People always ask how dangerous it is, whether we’re getting hit by avalanches,” he said. “They’re pretty good at spotting avalanches. They’re not as good at spotting rocks.”

While crews are on pace to open the road from the west to Logan Pass within a month, park officials warned that wintry conditions are still common at alpine elevations this time of year and the eventual opening is weather-dependent. 

The full length of Going-to-the-Sun Road between West Glacier and St. Mary won’t open until June 19 at the earliest because of construction on the east side of Logan Pass.

More information on park access can be found on the park’s website at: http://www.nps.gov.glac/index.htm.

Reporter Samuel Wilson can be reached at 758-4407 or by email at swilson@dailyinterlake.com.