Date:  Friday, July 10, 2009

Contact: Dustin Terpening, Communications, 360-757-5997 (Burlington)

MOUNT BAKER – Crews will open the road to Artist Point on Tuesday, July 14, after just five days of snow-clearing work, making this the fastest opening ever.

The WSDOT crews that led the charge to reopen the snow-covered road give credit for the speedy opening to one of the warmest Junes on record.

“Normally the 20-foot-tall restrooms are completely buried when we reach the upper parking lot, but this year we could see the roof,” said Maintenance Supervisor Bill Joyce. “The really nice stretch of weather we had in June helped us tremendously. It melted a lot of snow.”

(Picture of the restrooms: www.flickr.com/photos/wsdot/3694610281/in/set-72157621050816926/.)  

Crews began clearing the road July 6. There was very little snow on the highway for the first mile, allowing crews to open the road to the Terminal Lake parking lot on the first day. From there, things got tougher.

“Visibility was really poor; we could only see 200 to 500 feet ahead of us while we were working,” Joyce said. “It was socked in, gray, wet and miserable. The temperature only averaged 37-40 degrees during the day, and each morning when we arrived, the road was frozen over with 2 to 3 inches of ice from all the snowmelt.”

The snow averaged 8 to 15 feet deep between the Terminal Lake parking lot and the upper parking lot. And the snow was 10 to 15 feet deep in the upper parking lot. When compared to the 2008 opening, the snow was 6 feet deep at the lower gate, it averaged 17 feet deep over most of the road, and it was 20-plus feet deep in the upper parking lot.

Pictures of this year’s work are available on Flickr.com - www.flickr.com/photos/wsdot/sets/72157621050816926/. 
 
Artist Point is located at the very end of Mount Baker Highway, State Route 542, and boasts 360-degree views of Mount Shuksan and Mount Baker, as well as access to a variety of trails.

The road to Artist Point, 2.7 miles long (milepost 54.55 to 57.26) and more than 5,000 feet above sea level, is typically buried under snow and closed October through June.

Artist Point typically opens in July and remains open until the first substantial snowfall of the year, which usually comes in late September or early October. In 2008, Artist Point opened July 18 and closed Oct. 6. In 2007, Artist Point opened July 28 and closed Sept. 27. Artist Point never opened during the summer of 1999 because of record snowfall the previous winter. More opening and closing details - www.wsdot.wa.gov/Northwest/Baker/ArtistPoint/history.htm.  

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