By Don Nelson In time for the ’49er Days celebration in Winthrop this weekend, the North Cascades Highway was scheduled to be open for traffic starting at noon on Thursday (May 8), according to the Washington State Department of Transportation (WSDOT). The Silver Star gate on Highway 20 (milepost 171) will swing open Thursday and, […]
Highway 20
News briefs: April 30, 2014
This week: Cove’s food drive coming soon to a post office or mailbox near you, you can Help out Room One by donating on GiveBIG day, Volunteer at Shafer Museum on May 6 or read about how Snow clearing makes progress
Electric vehicle rally rolls through valley in June
Plug-In North Central Washington, an organization that supports electric vehicles, is hosting the North Cascades EV Rally of Discovery on June 6 and 7, with a major portion of the route in the Methow Valley. The 157-mile rally will begin on June 7 at Pine Near RV Park in Winthrop, which has an electric charging […]
Traffic delays of up to 20 minutes likely in Loup Loup Pass area
Motorists taking Highway 20 to Okanogan can expect delays of up to 20 minutes Tuesdays through Thursdays in the Loup Loup Pass area as crews work on a chip seal project between mileposts 209 and 227, the Washington State Department of Transportation said. The work is part of a $15.5 million project to resurface 238 […]
Prescribed burn planned west of Winthrop
The U.S. Forest Service plans to do a prescribed burn on 20 acres near Edelweiss on Thursday (April 17), conditions permitting. The burn will be on the Lucky 2 Timber Sale unit, about 10 miles west of Winthrop and about one-fourth of a mile from Edelweiss. The Forest Service said that other burn units in […]
WSDOT makes progress on clearing Highway 20
Avalanche supervisor Mike Stanford said the snow is soft and the clearing is going quickly, according to the press release. At the Washington Pass summit, the snowpack had melted from 10 feet down to a little over 7 feet, WSDOT said. Clearing on Monday progressed to milepost 168 near Lone Fir Campground, WSDOT said.
North Cascades Highway clearing has started west of Winthrop
As scheduled, crews from the Washington State Department of Transportation (WSDOT) began clearing deep snow off of Highway 20 on Monday (March 31) in hopes of opening the North Cascades Highway in four to six weeks. Crews from the Methow Valley side began clearing work at the Early Winters Information Center (milepost 178), where the winter closure […]
Before the storm
Washington Pass on the North Cascades Highway was calm and clear late last week before high winds and heavy snowfall prompted the Washington State Department of Transportation (WSDOT) to temporarily close the highway on Sunday (Dec. 1). On Tuesday (Dec. 3), WSDOT announced that the highway has been closed for the season, from the Silver […]
Record rain blocks roads and turns rivers brown
By Marcy Stamper
Torrential rains on the Methow Thursday night and Friday morning (Sept. 5–6) unleashed dense slides of mud and debris, closing Highway 20 and several U.S. Forest Service roads and making area rivers resemble chocolate pudding.
Dirty work
By Ann McCreary
After working continuously for more than a week to clear 3,000 dump truck loads of debris from the roadway, crews were able to reopen the North Cascades Highway on Monday morning (Aug. 19).
