Sun Road plows beyond the Loop

Glacier National Park plow crews have reached the Loop on the west side of Going-to-the-Sun Road.

Reaching the hairpin turn is an early milestone in the yearly effort to clear the scenic road that spans the park from West Glacier to the St. Mary entrance on the east side.

Beyond the Loop, the road enters rugged alpine terrain that is littered with more than 40 major avalanche chutes and precarious cliff bands before reaching Logan Pass.

Even with the lower section of the Sun Road cleared, the road remains closed at the four-way intersection at Apgar due to the Lake McDonald utilities project. There is no hiker or biker access allowed on the road past the closure at Apgar.

The east side plow crews are at Rising Sun Road. The road is open to vehicles up to that point. People can hike beyond the gate when plow crews aren't working.

There is no set date for the road to open over Logan Pass. Typically, the road will fully open by early July. Last summer the road opened to Logan Pass on July 13, matching the latest opening date on record.

Last week, the Camas Road opened to motor vehicles for the season.

The Many Glacier and Two Medicine Roads were both plowed into the valleys as of last week, but were not fully clear nor open to vehicles.

A weather station at Many Glacier showed 20 inches of settled snow depth on April 20. In Glacier's higher terrain, the settled snow depth was 96 inches on Flattop Mountain.

Generally, mountain snowpack is trending below average across Northwest Montana. The Flathead River Basin snow-water equivalent was at 94% of average as of April 20, while the Kootenai Basin was at 80%.

Mountain ranges east of the Continental Divide show a much healthier snowpack, with the Gallatin at 116% of average and the Madison at 122%.