Denali’s Polychrome Pretty Rocks Project Team Earns Partners in Excellence Award for Bold, Collaborative Response to Landslide Crisis

Through adaptive engineering, regular stakeholder engagement, and strong internal coordination, the team successfully complete repairs.

NPS

In recognition of their outstanding interagency collaboration, technical innovation, and commitment to preserving park access, the National Park Service (NPS) and Federal Highways Administration (FHWA) Denali National Park Polychrome Area Improvements Project Team has been awarded the 2025 Partners in Excellence (PIE) Award.

This honor highlights the team’s extraordinary efforts to address the closure of a critical segment of the Denali Park Road—an emergency that emerged rapidly in 2021 due to accelerating movement at the Pretty Rocks Landslide near milepost 45.

The 92-mile Denali Park Road is the only route into the interior of the park, providing vital access to park visitors, staff, concessionaires, and surrounding communities. When landslide activity suddenly intensified in late summer 2021—from inches per day to inches per hour—safe passage became impossible, forcing the immediate closure of the road.

What followed was one of the most complex and high-stakes infrastructure responses in recent National Park Service history.

A Unified Response to a Rapidly Changing Crisis

To develop a resilient and sustainable solution, the project team mobilized quickly, bringing together experts across Denali National Park, the NPS Alaska Region, the Denver Service Center, the Washington Support Office, and external engineering and transportation partners. Determining a feasible technical approach to building through an active landslide zone required navigating intense geologic risk, strict environmental protections, and the mission of the National Park Service.

The team focused not only on technical feasibility, but on developing a context-sensitive solution—one that met the site’s challenges while honoring the park’s landscape and significance. The approach included adaptive engineering, regular stakeholder engagement, and strong internal coordination to keep the project aligned with scope, budget, and mission priorities.