By Charley Sutherland
Jackson Hole News&Guide
Via- Wyoming News Exchange

JACKSON — Spring has sprung, and the Wyoming Department of Transportation and contracted construction crews are back at work repairing Teton Pass, which was destroyed in part last summer by a massive landslide.

The transportation agency resumed work last week and will push snow away from the worksite likely until the end of this week, WYDOT resident engineer Bob Hammond said.

WYDOT is still shooting for early July to finish its permanent fix of the section of State Highway 22, a heavily relied-upon mountain highway.

“It’s been a very fascinating project to say the least,” Hammond said, “from the moment it slid all the way to getting this work done.”

Starting April 21, WYDOT and partner construction crews will do both day and night shifts for the project, Hammond said. Once snow is cleared in the coming days, WYDOT will begin installing its lightweight road fill material made from recycled bottles. It will take until about the third week of June to install the road fill, Hammond said. From there, construction teams will install a crushed road base — a foundational layer — and then crews will pave the road.

WYDOT is storing the fill material in Idaho, and the agency will be transporting it to the worksite at mile marker 12.8. While those trucks are coming on and off the site, transportation officials will use flaggers to control traffic, and drivers could experience brief delays, Hammond said.

“The detour was very effective,” Hammond said. 

Evans Construction, one of WYDOT’s contractors, did a great job on constructing it quickly but it’s too steep and its curves are too sharp to use as a permanent fix, he said.

As is, the curves on Teton Pass are plenty windy, and the grade, at 10%, is steep enough that WYDOT does not want to make it any steeper or curvier on any section of the mountain highway, Hammond said.

The road will follow essentially the same path it did pre-landslide, he said.

Transportation officials will also be undertaking additional work to ensure effective drainage as construction ramps up.

When a gaping hole opened on the highway sometime between midnight and 4 a.m. on June 8, 2024, the lives of many in Teton Valley and Jackson Hole quickly and fundamentally changed. Commuters drove an hour and 45 minutes through Swan and Star valleys; folks lost out on family time; national media followed the story, and people camped out to avoid the commute.

Hammond hopes nothing like it happens again but WYDOT is “at the ready,” if it does, he said.