JACKSON, Wyo. – Ahead of one of the busiest travel weeks for the holiday season, the Wyoming Department of Transportation District 3 avalanche mitigation team scheduled an avalanche control mission in the early hours of Dec. 22 in response to recent weather activity on Wyoming State Highway 22, Teton Pass.
“We’ve had some snow and a lot of wind and warming temperatures. It rained on the snowpack last night as well and that changed the whole equation. We knew we needed to get up there and do some mitigation work,” said WYDOT avalanche program supervisor Don Lawless.
Crews remotely detonated the Gazex avalanche infrastructure in the area known as Glory Bowl and brought down the largest controlled avalanche seen by crews in recent years. A snow slide over 30 feet high and 250 feet wide buried both lanes of travel at milepost 10 on the closed road.
“I was expecting snow to come out of Twin slides, but nothing really hit the road. We were not expecting the amount of snow we saw come down Glory Bowl, it was the largest avalanche I’ve seen here,” Lawless said.
Crews immediately went to work clearing snow and debris off the road. A dozer from Yellow Iron, a local excavation company, was contracted to assist WYDOT with the clean-up from the east side of the avalanche, while the Idaho Transportation Department assisted with a loader on the west side.
“We are very lucky to have such exceptional neighbors to the west in the Idaho Transportation Department. We have an excellent working relationship with their crews, which is a benefit to drivers on both sides of the pass. Without them, we would have not been able to open this road as quickly as we did,” District 3 Maintenance foreman Troy Jerup said.
Clean up operations lasted about 14 hours and the road was reopened just after 5 p.m. today. WYDOT asks that drivers drive cautiously and stay alert, as contract crews will continue to work under traffic as roadside operations continue tomorrow. Drivers should remain vigilant when driving in winter conditions and obey all road closure and advisories this winter season.
For more information on road conditions and closures across Wyoming, visit our web site at www.wyoroad.info. Drivers can receive text alerts on road conditions and closures by signing up for 511 Notify at https://www.wyoroad.info/511/511NotifyAnnouncement.html.
