Teton Pass Reopens To Wydaho Commuters
In the turnaround of the century, Wyoming Highway 22 over Teton Pass reopened to traffic today, June 28th, 2024 via a temporary detour merely three weeks after a catastrophic landslide took out a hairpin turn near Milepost 13.
Courtesy WYDOT
Much of the Jackson Hole workforce lives in Idaho and commutes over the pass every day, with residents giving a huge sigh of relief that their normal commuter route was reopened.
On Saturday, June 28, 2024, following unseasonably heavy rains and warm temperatures, the road collapsed, making the main road connection between Jackson, Wyoming and Victor, Idaho impassable. That left commuters with no other option but to take a two-hour detour through Idaho’s Swan Valley and the Snake River Canyon.
Road construction crews immediately began repairing the damaged road section to restore the vital link between the two communities. The damaged section, nicknamed the Big Fill, was constructed by dumping soil and fill material in the 1960s to flatten the grade of the road.
Courtesy WYDOT
Geologists and engineers had been monitoring that particular slope for years, even installing equipment last fall to monitor any changes, knowing that it had the potential to move. A small crack had been repaired several times in the turn, but nobody expected such a large collapse to occur.
According to statements made at a media conference on Tuesday, no movement was detected by the equipment until just a few days before the collapse. Two days before the collapse, a motorcyclist was injured when they hit a new crack that had opened in the road in the same section, which forced the highway to close for a few hours.
The following day, a large mudslide crossed the highway further down the hill, requiring additional repairs. With the temporary repair closures lifted, the highway was open to traffic at the time of the catastrophic collapse.
Despite initial fears that the road would be closed for many months, project managers decided to build a temporary detour around the landslide to allow traffic to pass while crews repaired the damage.
This 600-foot-long section of road was cleared on the inside of the collapsed turn and subsequently paved. Contractors worked around the clock and moved an estimated 30,000 cubic feet of dirt to build the new road grade. Simultaneously, contractors built a new culvert to allow water to cross below the highway at the point where mudslide occurred at milepost 15.
Courtesy WYDOT
Some community members have voiced concerns about safety on this section of road, questioning why the detour wouldn’t just collapse as well. WYDOT engineer James Dahill explains that the new section is built on more stable native soil, and WYDOT will install new equipment to monitor any movement in real-time, especially as construction continues on the permanent fix. That is expected to be completed and open to traffic this fall.
The new two-lane road section has a speed limit of 20mph and is open to all vehicles, which will likely slow down traffic across the Pass. But, locals say, a few extra minutes of sitting in slow traffic beats the two-hour detour each way they were forced to endure before.
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