News Release

Switchback Trailhead Culvert Repair Scheduled for Hurricane Ridge Road

You are viewing ARCHIVED content

This content was published online before January 20, 2025. Please note that this content is NOT UPDATED, and links may not work. For current information, visit https://www.nps.gov/aboutus/news/index.htm.

Emergency repair needed for Switchback Culvert in Fall 2017

NPS Photo

News Release Date: September 6, 2019
Contact: Penny Wagner, 360-565-3005

Repairs to the Switchback Trailhead culvert at mile 14.5 on Hurricane Ridge Road are scheduled to begin during the week of September 16. Visitors should expect short traffic delays of less than five minutes for alternating single-lane traffic during weekday work hours. For visitor and worker safety, Switchback Trailhead and parking area will be closed for the duration of the repairs. The trailhead parking area will be used as the staging area for equipment and materials for the project. The entire repair project and trailhead closure is anticipated to last four weeks.

The initial failure of the Switchback Trailhead culvert occurred in fall 2017 on the day before Thanksgiving. Park road crew completed an emergency repair over the holiday which kept the road from being undercut and ultimately prevented the loss of access to Hurricane Ridge until repairs could have been made in the summer.

The 48” culvert is located in a very active drainage and avalanche chute at an elevation where precipitation and the freezing and melting of snow sends high volumes of water, rock, and debris from a large watershed downslope to the culvert.

The contract, funded through the Federal Lands Transportation Program (FLTP) of the Federal Highway Administration, was awarded to Verdis of Coeur d’Alene, Idaho. The FLTP funds projects that improve access within Federal lands (national forests, national parks, national wildlife refuges, national recreation areas, and other Federal public lands) on transportation facilities in the national Federal Lands transportation inventory, and owned and maintained by the Federal government.

This project is being managed collaboratively by the Federal Highway Administration and the National Park Service.

For information about visiting Olympic National Park, visitors should consult the park website at http://www.nps.gov/olym.  
 

Tags: culvert, road maintenance, hurricane ridge

RSS Feed | What is RSS?