Great weather helps Sun Road work

Favorable fall weather has helped reconstruction work on Glacier National Park's Going-to-the-Sun Road. Crews recently finished paving a section of the highway from Haystack Creek to Big Bend.

Subcontractor Knife River brought in semi-tractor trailer truckloads of asphalt, dumped it at Logan Pit and then hauled the material up the alpine section of the highway with smaller dump trucks. The effort went smoothly, Glacier Park landscape architect Jack Gordon said.

This summer, crews replaced about seven-tenths of a mile of old green-timber guardrail that dated back to the 1960s. The unattractive rail was replaced with round timbers and steel that compliments the historic character of the road, Gordon said.

Crews are now completing finish work and punch-list items on the alpine portion of the road. One short section of highway about a mile from Logan Pass had to be rebuilt after an avalanche damaged the wooden rails last winter. The fix, which will include stone masonry walls, will cost about $300,000, Gordon said.

The forces of nature are constantly at odds with the road - from avalanches to rock fall, the historic highway sees at least some damage every year. But sometimes nature's work has a silver lining.

In July, a rainstorm caused massive rock and debris slides on the road, particularly at Big Bend. Normally, the material would have to be hauled away or dumped over the side of the highway. But in this case, crews were able to use the fallen rock to rebuild the turnouts at Big Bend, providing more parking as well as expansive views of the valley below.

In lower elevations, crews are working from Avalanche Creek to Logan Creek. Both bridges will see sealing treatment to keep water from damaging the underlying concrete. In addition, crews will widen about 200 feet of the highway, without harming any of the old cedars in the area, to provide more parking just east of Avalanche Creek.

Crews are also working on turnouts and have already completed stonework at Red Rocks, a popular pullout farther east of Avalanche. The goal is to make a wheelchair-accessible walkway out to Red Rocks so people can view the waterfalls there. The park is seeking funding for that project from the Glacier National Park Fund.

The hope is to have the section between Avalanche and Logan Creek paved and completed by next August, assuming the weather cooperates.

"There will be no fall closure on the west side next year," Gordon said.

Gordon said park officials are optimistic there's enough funding in a recently passed highway bill to completely finish the Sun Road reconstruction by 2016. The project received a $3 million grant from the Department of Transportation Public Lands Highways Discretionary Program for east side reconstruction. Next year crews will start work on the east side from Siyeh Bend to Rising Sun.