Uncovering The Sun

By Dillon Tabish // April 2017 // Outdoors Flathead Beacon

They dodge tumbling boulders and surging avalanches. Hunkered inside high-powered heavy equipment, they navigate a narrow, often invisible path that ascends into the sky, twisting and turning up the mountainside along jagged cliffs and over a minefield of unstable surfaces. They sculpt walls of winter in the cradle of ancient glaciers, cutting through 30- to 50-foot drifts and chewing up 4,000 tons — 8 million pounds — of snow per hour, 100,000 cubic yards per spring.

These high-pressure operations are part of the Glacier National Park Road Crew’s age-old mission prepping the iconic Going-to-the-Sun Road for tourist season, a spring rite that plays a pivotal role in the park and surrounding region.

Starting April 1 and usually spanning 10 weeks each year, the 20-person crew braves this 50-mile highway, one of the most treacherous thoroughfares on the continent and the primary path into Glacier.

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