Still Snowed In The High Points Of The North Cascades Highway Still Are Buried

Feathery Rooster Tails, frog-green Panther Martins and fluorescent Dick Nites dangle like fuchsia blossoms from a display in the Tenderfoot General Store.

The selection of fishing lures is impressive. And troubling, considering that nearby lakes opened for fishing more than a week ago.

“(Opening day) is usually a big day,” said Estell Imes, the Tenderfoot’s night clerk. “Usually, there’s two people working the night shift, plus an ice cream person, plus the boss running in and out.

“This year, I was all by myself.”

The problem isn’t at the snow-free 1,700-foot level, where Pearrygin Lake is stocked with hatchery-fresh rainbow trout. It’s 3,500 feet higher in the Cascade Range.

Washington and Rainy passes, the high points on the North Cascades Highway, still are buried under 9-1/2 feet of snow - more than anybody here can remember since the highway opened 25 years ago.

Crews for the state Department of Transportation, who began clearing the highway on March 10, hope to open it at 10 a.m. Wednesday, the latest since 1976. Normally, campers and motor homes start streaming over the highway by mid-April.

The tardy opening is the latest blow to a town that relies on the highway to bring tourists, who have replaced timber and cattle as the economic backbone. In December, there was so much snow in Winthrop that yuppies from Seattle and Bellevue couldn’t get to the Methow Valley’s cross-country ski trails.

About the time the valley roads were plowed, an explosion destroyed The Outdoorsman store, and damaged the Tenderfoot and other businesses. Caused by a faulty propane tank, but initially reported as suspicious, the blast made news across the state.

Overall, winter business slumped about 25 percent, said David Tufte, the front desk clerk at the Hotel Rio Vista. The hotel was only half full for the fishing opener; usually every room is taken.

Tourists from Seattle can reach the Methow Valley about as quickly by using Snoqualamie or Stevens passes. Most prefer the more scenic route over the North Cascades Highway. Last year, more than 400,000 vehicles crossed the route, which pierces North Cascades National Park and has little commercial traffic.

People can’t do much about freak explosions or near-record snowfalls. So some Winthrop business leaders and anxious tourists are aiming their frustration at the state Department of Transportation, instead.

“You would think the DOT would work hard and long to open the pass in the spring,” Chamber of Commerce President Craig Lints wrote in a letter to the weekly Methow Valley News. “Hard, maybe. Long? Not!”

Lints wrote that road equipment sits idle three days a week because crews work four, 10-hour shifts. To save money, there’s no overtime, said Bill Southern, Transportation Department spokesman.

Up on the pass last Thursday, crew leader Jim Dahlquist tossed a tightly folded copy of the News on the dash of his state-assigned pickup, then glanced up at the Spiral Gulch Slide. It is one of many avalanches his crews had to clear from the highway.

“When we came through here, the snow was 18 feet deep on the center line,” said Dahlquist, who has worked on the highway each spring for 17 years.

Another avalanche, which started high on Liberty Bell mountain, left 67 feet of snow and rocks on the road.

Clearing the slides required two of Caterpillar’s biggest bulldozers, a smaller Cat, three 600-horsepower snowblowers, a grader, a front-loader and a mechanic to replace broken drivelines, U-joints and sheer pins.

As Dahlquist’s team crept up the east side, a similar crew was working from the west. Together, they’re clearing snow and rubble from 44 miles of two-lane highway.

By the time the highway opens, workers will have moved enough snow to fill 120,000 dump trucks, Dahlquist figures. Melted, it could supply water to 50 Spokane households for a year or fill the Manito Park duck pond 3-1/2 times.

Dahlquist, a part-time bar bouncer at the Winthrop Palace, said he understands his neighbors’ impatience.

Many people give up higher wages to live in the shadow of peaks that so often are compared to the Alps it’s become a cliche. When the highway opening is late, seasonal jobs are cut short.

“Everyone’s real anxious,” said Noel Simmons, who could be a registered nurse somewhere else but chooses to wait tables and mix drinks in Winthrop.

It’s not just their bank accounts that make residents anxious. The highway’s opening marks spring as much as the yellow balsamroot on the gray foothills.

Some Methow Valley residents cure cabin fever by driving over the highway every year on the day it opens, said Dahlquist. They have lunch at a Western Washington restaurant, and drive home, all in the same day.

This year, while they’re waiting to make the trip, Winthrop residents are contemplating the snow that still hangs over their valley like a storm cloud.

“It’ll probably flood next,” said Tufte.

, DataTimes ILLUSTRATION: 2 Color Photos