Sun Road back to two-lane traffic

Glacier National Park’s Going-to-the-Sun Road is back to two-lane traffic from Apgar to Avalanche Creek. A beaver dam, stressed by heavy rains on a remote stream failed earlier this week inundating a culvert and flooding the road.

West Glacier has seen 4.75 inches of rain in the past week, most of which fell over the weekend.

The beaver dam was hidden from view — Park officials didn’t know exactly what happened until they flew over the area and saw the dam from the air, said Park spokeswoman Margie Steigerwald.

The dam was about a mile from the road, she said.

The flooding closed the road for a time and then crews were able to open it to one-lane traffic yesterday.

The bad weather has all but halted plowing in the high country. Crews have met at the Big Drift, but the weather has brought about a foot of snow on the road in higher elevations and upwards of three feet on the Garden Wall.

Late seasons snows are not unusual in Glacier. It can snow any month of the year, though this last storm was particularly potent. Warm weather earlier this spring had melted all of the lower elevation snowpack.