First Winter Road Closing in Montana...in September

Just a month after the Going-to-the-Sun Road was closed by a forest fire in Glacier National Park, the top of Logan Pass has been temporarily shut down again, this time because of snow.

Glacier announced over the weekend that a section of the Going-to-the-Sun Road between Big Bend on the west side and Jackson Glacier Overlook on the east side is temporarily closed because of winter weather conditions.

Representatives from the park could not be reached on Sunday to give an estimate on when the road might reopen.

The park announced last week that the Logan Pass Visitor Center will remain open through Sept. 30 this year, and that the east side of the road will stay open through Oct. 4, two weeks longer than originally planned.

Eighteen miles of the Going-to-the-Sun road had been closed from July 21 to Aug. 7 because of the Reynolds Creek fire.

All of the travel restrictions on U.S. Highway 2 along the south edge of the park near Essex have been lifted. The road had been temporarily closed during August because of the Sheep fire, and even when it reopened, vehicles were being moved through by pilot cars.

The Thompson-Divide Complex, which is made up of the Thompson, Granite and Sheep fires, had more than an inch of rain and snow over the weekend.

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