Glacier corridor reopens to vehicle and rail traffic
This Tuesday, Feb. 7, 2017 photo provided by Burlington Northern Santa Fe Railway shows a BNSF Railway train with a plow where it was clearing snow from the tracks after avalanche control efforts along the southern edge of Glacier National Park near Essex, Mont. Freight traffic has resumed through the Glacier National Park area after BNSF Railway completed avalanche mitigation work. Amtrak passenger trains will follow Thursday. (Burlington Northern Santa Fe Railway via AP)
Traffic was allowed to resume along U.S. 2 between Essex and East Glacier Friday afternoon after a winter storm shut down the mountain corridor for the second time this week.
Justun Juelfs, the Montana Department of Transportation Kalispell division maintenance chief, said department trucks and workers had to treat a 2-inch layer of ice on the highway after not being able to enter the area Thursday due to extreme avalanche danger.
Thursday morning, an avalanche swept through the area between Essex and Devils Creek. The large magnitude slide spilled roughly 6 to 8 feet of snow debris over the BNSF Railway line that runs parallel to the highway.
Juelfs said about 6 to 8 inches of the avalanche’s debris hit the highway.
Throughout the day, the BNSF Avalanche Safety Program rated the avalanche danger at 5 — the highest risk — meaning crews were unable to access the area to remove the debris.
Juelfs said when the BNSF bumped that rating down to 4 on Friday morning, crews were able to reach the area to begin clearing snow.
Ross Lane, the regional director of public affairs for BNSF Railway, said avalanche danger and weather conditions improved enough overnight to allow BNSF crews to resume work in the area, as well.
The rail line was reopened at 3 p.m. Friday, also allowing Amtrak trains that were stopped in Whitefish and Shelby to continue on the Empire Builder route.
ACCORDING TO the Montana Department of Transportation road report, the stretch of U.S. 2 from West Glacier to Essex was classified as “severe driving conditions” as of Friday morning.
Simultaneously, black ice covered most of the Flathead Valley as warming temperatures combined with rain after days of winter storms created dangerous driving conditions.
Unofficial reports from the National Weather Service revealed that winter storms from Feb. 3 through Feb. 6 approached or exceeded record snowfall totals for Northwest Montana.
In Essex, the snowfall report showed 39 inches fell over the four-day period ending Feb. 6. A station that operated between 1951 and 1970 recorded a maximum four-day total of 34.0 inches ending Feb. 26, 1956.
For the West Glacier area, unofficial records ranged between 30 and 36 inches of snowfall over the storm’s four-day period.
In comparison, official records from January of 1957 show the previous maximum snowfall reported in the West Glacier area was 34 inches. West Glacier’s available records began in 1948.
Snowfall in Kalispell fell 17 places behind its highest four-day snowfall total, with Glacier National Airport reporting a total of 20 inches. The city’s record stands at 26.8 inches, which accumulated the first week of January in 2009.