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Saturday, June 20, 2020
The Observer & Baker City Herald
SNOW STILL BLOCKING SOME HIGHER-ELEVATION ROADS
Snow Melt
Is A Slow Melt
Snowdrifts blocked the Elkhorn Drive Scenic Byway near Anthony Lakes on Thursday.
By Jayson Jacoby
Baker City Herald
D
an Story was just
trying to make it
easier for drivers to
see approaching cars as they
steered through the serpen-
tine Elkhorn Drive Scenic
Byway west of Baker City.
He ended up thwarting
blizzards.
Sort of.
Story, who is the road man-
ager for the Whitman District
of the Wallowa-Whitman
National Forest, can’t actually
divert the storms that slather
many feet of snow every
winter on the Elkhorn Drive,
the second-highest paved road
in Oregon.
(Not that snow is confi ned
to the coldest season — high
in the Elkhorns snow fell just
this week, and earlier in June
a storm dropped close to a foot
above 7,000 feet.)
But a project four years ago,
which Story undertook for a
completely different reason,
seems to have had the unex-
pected benefi t of shrinking the
period when snow blocks a
section of the two-lane paved
highway that circles the Elk-
horns over its 106 miles.
The actual purpose was
“brushing.”
Story hired a contractor to
cut trees with a diameter of
less than 9 inches growing
within 6 feet of the shoulder
of the byway between Crane
Flats, a few miles north of
Granite, and the Elkhorn
Summit.
Snowplows don’t ply that
roughly 17-mile section of the
byway, so it’s generally closed
to vehicles, except snowmo-
biles, for more than half the
year.
Elkhorn Summit, at 7,392
feet, is about 2 miles west
of Anthony Lakes. The only
paved road in Oregon that
reaches a higher point is the
Rim Drive in Crater Lake
National Park, which tops out
around 7,900 feet.
Those roadside trees, which
in places grew thickly, ex-
tended branches far enough to
impede drivers’ views on some
of the dozens of sharp curves
on that section, Story said.
Removing the trees had the
intended effect of improving
Lisa Britton/For the EO Media Group
“This has been a strange year. A couple of roads
opened earlier than usual.”
— Dan Story, road manager, Whitman District of the
Wallowa-Whitman National Forest
the sightlines, Story said.
But since the brushing was
done he’s noticed that snow
melts sooner in late spring
and early summer than it did
earlier in his tenure.
“Last year it was open on
June 11, the earliest in my 10
years of doing this,” Story said.
The explanation seems
simple to Story.
The trees removed dur-
ing the brushing project, in
addition to obscuring views,
also cast shadows over the
pavement.
With the trees gone, the sun
shines longer on the roadway
each day.
Story also noticed that a
short section near Elkhorn
Summit, where an especially
deep drift usually formed each
winter, hasn’t accumulated in
the past few winters since the
brushing work.
“I have to assume I’ve
changed the wind pattern,”
he said. “It’s kind of a quirky
thing. I was really surprised.”
Last year Story extended
the brushing project to include
the Elkhorn Drive between
Granite and Crane Flats, as
well as short sections of Forest
Road 52, which starts at the
North Fork John Day River,
and Forest Road 51, which
branches off Road 52 and
heads north to the Grande
Ronde River and Starkey.
Besides speeding the
snowmelt, the brushing has
reduced the number of trees
that topple across the roads
each winter and spring, Story
said.
But no amount of brushing
can infl uence weather trends.
And Story said conditions
this spring — in particular the
series of unseasonably strong
and cold storms over the past
month or so — have kept
some higher-elevation roads
blocked by snow.
That includes a short sec-
tion of the Elkhorn Drive.
Lingering snow still blocked
the road Thursday about one
mile west of Anthony Lakes
Ski Area, and in places over
the next 4 miles or so.
With warmer weather fore-
cast for the next several days,
the byway could potentially
open within the next week.
The higher sections of the
Ladd Canyon Road — Forest
Road 43 — which leads from
Wallowa-Whitman National Forest photo
Boulders on the Wallowa Mountain Loop Road north of Halfway earlier this spring. The
rocks have been removed and the popular route between Halfway and Joseph is open.
Grande Ronde Lake to Inter-
state 84, are also still blocked
by snowdrifts, Story said.
The Marble Creek Pass
Road, which connects the
Baker and Sumpter valleys,
is blocked by drifts near the
7,542-foot summit.
“This has been a strange
year,” Story said. “A couple
of roads opened earlier than
usual.”
See Roads/Page 2B
Wallowa-Whitman National Forest photo
Wallowa-Whitman National Forest photo
A contractor grades the Empire Gulch Road near Eagle Creek this spring.
These rocks were moved off the Eagle Creek Road, in the
southern Wallowa Mountains, earlier this year.