Park outlines plans for Inside Road

Glacier National Park will release alternatives for repairing the Inside North Fork Road later this year, Park wilderness manager Kyle Johnson told a group of North Fork residents and stakeholders last week.

Johnson was responding to talk from residents that the Park Service was considering permanently closing the road from Logging Creek to Camas Creek.

While that is one option for a future environmental assessment, the Park Service is leaning toward keeping the road open by moving it or fixing it depending on the location, Johnson said.

The Inside Road has washed out at several locations in recent years, including near the Logging Creek Campground and at Anaconda Creek. Both streams have braided and taken out culverts. Near Quartz Creek, the North Fork of the Flathead River is slowly but surely eroding away the stream bank below the roadbed at what Park managers call “Lovers Leap.”

The washouts caused the Park Service to close the road between Camas and Logging Creeks all of last year, and that section of road has been closed on and off for several years now.

North Fork resident Lynn Ogle said his concern was the Park would simply close the road. If not maintained, the road would fall into such disrepair that it would be tough to fix, he said.

Johnson said the Park will release a final analysis of the situation later this year, take public comment and then probably fix it permanently in 2016.

In some places, the road would need to be moved several hundred feet to avoid further washouts, Johnson said. He didn’t have a firm cost estimate for the work but guessed it would cost several hundred thousand dollars.

The Inside North Fork Road is the oldest road in Glacier Park. The dirt road runs from Fish Creek to Kintla Lake and offers good wildlife viewing opportunities for visitors heading to Polebridge.