In the North Fork, it's a tale of two roads

The North Fork Road from the Camas Road to Polebridge is a pretty smooth drive, provided you dodge the occasional pothole.

The North Fork Road from Glacier Rim to Camas is a lesson in dust and washboard, a place where if you’re heavy on the gas, it’s not all that hard to get going sideways.

It’s a perfect example of a treated road versus an untreated road.

The upper end is treated with magnesium chloride to control the dust and harden the road surface. The lower end is not.

Rough or not, the road is seeing more traffic than ever.

Flathead County Public Works Director Dave Prunty said a traffic counter from June 9 to June 16 counted an average of 1,039 vehicles a day, up from about 780 a few years ago.

That’s a 33% increase.

He said the solution to making the entire road more drivable is to treat as much as possible. He urged homeowners to enter cost-sharing with the county on treatment, but on the lower end, it will take more cost sharing with the large land agencies such as the Flathead National Forest.

There are only few homes between Glacier Rim and the Camas Road.

More than a few North Forkers hope something can be done.

Karin Colby has been delivering mail to the North Fork for years. She says the lower road is rough on her rig.

“I beat my car up every day to [deliver mail],” she said during a meeting of the North Fork Interlocal last week, a meeting where North Forkers can air concerns to local, state and federal officials.

Flathead County Commissioner Pam Holmquist said the county needs more help from the management agencies.

She said they’d like to do more, “but we don’t have the budget.”

Prunty noted that a few years ago, the county looked at how much the North Fork community collectively pays in property taxes for roads and bridges. It was about $15,000 at the time. That number has increased over time, he noted, but it still doesn’t approach the $130,000 in services the county spent on the road last year.

To work on the lower road, it would take a crew of about eight men and several pieces of heavy equipment to re-grade the road, Prunty noted. The county just doesn’t have the resources at the moment to do that.

Prunty admitted the lower North Fork Road is “rougher than hell.”

One person asked about the “intrinsic value” of visitors.

“Intrinsically, it doesn’t get me tax dollars,” Prunty noted.

A portion of the North Fork Road, however, will see improvement next year. A cooperative plan between the county, Forest Service and Border Patrol to improve the last 5 miles of the road should go out to bid this fall with work starting next summer, Prunty said.

That project is about $3 million and has been in the planning stages for years.

The county will also provide a 13.42% match and the Border Patrol will kick in $100,000. The balance comes from federal land access funds.

IN OTHER discussion at the North Fork Interlocal meeting, Prunty told the crowd a plan to fix Glacier View Drive is "on life support." That road is the only way to get to the Polebridge Entrance Station, and is in rough shape.

The county planned to fix the road using a mix of county, National Park Service, Flathead National Forest and Border Patrol funds, and use millings from the Going-to-the-Sun Road project that would, in essence pave Glacier View Drive.

That project is now in doubt, as some residents have objected to paving the road and money to just put down gravel instead of millings isn't there.

Glacier View Drive saw at least 23,752 visitors in June, according to the National Park Service, and since it's an in-and-out road, motorists drove it at least twice.

An option to fix it with gravel from a pit at Whale Creek would cost about $700,000, a cost that is higher than the available match dollars from the partnering agencies, Prunty said after the meeting.

When the millings became a possibility from Glacier they have a much higher value to them for match than the gravel from Forest Service,” Prunty noted in an email.

The county share of the project is just over 13%, so the millings value makes a big difference to what the county would have to match. 

Glacier Park Acting Superintendent Pete Webster said the Park Service did not object to using the millings. He noted the park’s general management plan calls for managing the North Fork in a rustic condition, but Glacier View Drive is outside the park and the park recognizes its poor shape.