Battling Snow and Danger: Crews Race to Open Montana’s Most Beautiful Road
Road workers in Glacier National Park have been working hard since April to clear snow from the famous Going-to-the-Sun Road. Even though the weather is getting warmer now, there’s still lots of work to do before tourists can drive on this beautiful Montana road.
The teams use big machines to remove snow that sometimes reaches very high levels. They hope to finish the work before the busy summer season starts.
Avalance dangers
Work leader Christian Tranel explains that the job isn’t easy. “The main challenges that we face are the avalanche dangers and then the rock falls that we get”, Tranel said. “In Big Bend, we had a huge avalanche back in March, and so just because we got to Big Bend really fast, and then Big Bend made us slow way down because it was so deep right there.”
The situation remains challenging despite the somewhat mild winter this year, writes MTN News. Clearing this mountain road is very dangerous work. That’s why special avalanche forecasters help keep the workers safe.
Maddey Frey, one of these forecasters, explains how they help: “They get to focus on a very dangerous task in itself, which is just plowing this road with big edges and snow. Above and below, we’re providing that safety for them and saying where they can or cannot go and what time they need to leave, and we’re watching above them as well so that they can just focus on the task at hand as safely getting this road open as quick as possible.”
Careful
Even when the road opens, visitors need to be careful. “There’s constantly rocks that come off of these mountains and land on the road”, Tranel said. “They need to think about that when they come up and especially if it’s raining in the areas that their shoots they need to not probably hang out in those spots because that’s where the rocks a lot of times fall.”
The park hasn’t announced an exact opening date yet, but the road usually opens around mid-June. Visitors can check the latest road conditions on the Glacier National Park website.
