Glacier Park roads leader enjoys challenges of plowing Sun Road

When Christian Tranel was operating bulldozers in the Army, he never dreamed that he would one day be operating the same equipment clearing snow from the top of one of the most famous mountain passes in the country.

For the past 12 years, Tranel has been a part of the crew that battles the snow, rocks and avalanches each spring to make Going-to-the-Sun Road in Glacier National Park passable for millions of visitors.

“I always look forward to it every spring. Clearing this road is the highlight of my year,” the park’s Roads Work Leader said. “I just enjoy being up there with the mountain, the animals and the weather. I also really like the challenge of never knowing what you are going to face every day. It’s a great job and I never take it for granted.”

For Tranel, who missed the spring opening during his first season in 2010, his first experience pioneering through the road’s snow came in the record snowfall year of 2011, when the road did not open until the record-late date of July 13.

Working alongside another Going-to-the-Sun rookie and for a supervisor who would avoid the road due to a fear of heights, Tranel gained valuable experience plowing during the roughest season on record.

“It felt long and we were working a lot of overtime, but I didn’t have anything else to compare it to. That year, we had to deal with a lot of record snow while this year we had to deal with record cold keeping spring from coming to the top of the pass. It was a completely different experience,” Tranel said. “We got stuck and fell in some holes a few times, but it was fun. It was definitely an adventure.”

With the help of avalanche spotters, crews were able to eventually get the road open in mid-July that year.

“We rely on them so much. We couldn’t do our job without spotters,” Tranel said. “It’s a hard job and I would much rather pioneer the road than be a spotter. As a spotter, you are usually standing in a spot that is not very safe and they don’t have the safety of being in a 50,000 pound piece of equipment to protect them.”

After several years working on the east side, Tranel made the move to the road’s west side, trading one set of spectacular views for another.

While the challenges on the west side are similar to the east, there are a few tough spots for plow crews, including Rim Rock and Triple Arches, where crews had to battle avalanche snow slides several times this season.

“As spring works its way up in elevation, the areas that typically have avalanches during the thawing have already slid before we get there. With the cold, that didn’t happen this year. This year, we were up there working when all that was happening and there were several areas we had to plow several times because slides would wipe away all of our work,” he said. “The problem with big drifts like we kept seeing at Triple Arches is that you have to drive a dozer to the top to begin the work each time. You have to go slowly and hope you don’t start sliding backwards. It’s nerve-racking work.”

Along with late season snow, cold temperatures and avalanches, crews have had to deal with an unusual amount of rockfall this season.

“Along with dealing with the sliding snow, we also have to continually look out for rocks beneath the snow and coming down on us from above. Rocks prevent us from using the blower, forcing us to do the work with a loader. That takes a lot longer. That’s a big reason why we are still clearing the road in July this year,” Tranel said. “Rockfall is the scariest part of the job, no doubt about it. We have all had close calls with rocks up there. We have all had rocks hit our equipment or vehicles. It comes out of the blue and you have no idea when it will happen. I’ve seen boulders the size of a car come down at 80 miles an hour and hit the road right in front of me.”

While changing weather conditions means Tranel and his crews never know what they will be facing each season, he says he enjoys the challenge and wouldn’t have it any other way.

“The biggest challenge we face every year is whatever mother nature wants to throw at us that season. Nature dishes out what it is going to dish out and we never know exactly what that is going to be,” he said. “We just have to accept it and deal with it.”