The 7 miles of highway from Early Winters to Silver Star Gate is open now. WSDOT found 3 feet of snow on the pavement when this photo was taken on March 22, 2018.
State highway crews are expected to begin clearing snow on Monday (April 9) beyond the Silver Star gate on Highway 20 to begin the push to open the North Cascades Highway from the east side.
As always, weather will dictate how quickly Washington State Department of Transportation (WDOT) crews will be able to open the road, said Don Becker, Twisp supervisor. Cold weather that is persisting in the Cascades holds snow in the numerous avalanche chutes above the highway and complicates things for road crews.
“We’re hoping for a spring event” like a stretch of 40-degree days and nights to bring the slides down, Becker said. Unfortunately, that weather isn’t in the forecast for the near future, he said.
Without warmer weather to bring down slides, crews need to exercise more caution and monitor and watch for avalanches even more than they normally do. “You have to be really on your toes instead of just on your toes,” Becker said. “We’ll go ahead but at some point, they have to come down.”
There are about 20 avalanche chutes below Cutthroat Ridge, Kangaroo Ridge and Liberty Bell Mountain on the way to Washington Pass that can produce slides that need clearing each spring, although amounts vary year to year. Becker said crews sometimes clear a slide and move past it, only to have to have the chute release more snow and have to clear the slide from the other direction to get out again.
Snowmobilers, cross country skiers and snowshoers can continue to use the highway beyond the Silver Star gate for recreation this week, but once the snow clearing work begins next Monday, access beyond the gate is closed Monday through Thursday.
On the west side, WSDOT crews began work on March 26 and by early this week had made it as far as Granite Creek, near milepost 148, about 14 miles beyond the west side closure at Diablo gate. Snow on the highway was about 3 ½ feet deep, WSDOT reported.
The highway closed for the winter last Nov. 10. Last spring crews started clearing on April 10 and reopened the highway on May 16. The latest opening was in 1974 when the highway reopened on June 14. During the winter of 1976 to 1977, there wasn’t enough snow to ever close the highway.
