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WEST GLACIER - Winter's weight has been lifted from the Going-to-the-Sun Road, but Suburban-sized rocks still are looming over efforts to open the route.

"There's a possibility it could open over the pass this weekend," said Glacier National Park spokeswoman Amy Vanderbilt. "But we still have to deal with these rocks, and the forecast is for additional snow."

According to Vanderbilt, snowplow crews recently spotted three large boulders teetering over the road in the Haystack Creek area west of Logan Pass. Two of the rocks have been pulled down and cleared out, she said, but the largest - at 125 cubic yards - still looms.

Park officials were particularly alarmed by the rocks, as they were in the same area as two 50-ton boulders that slammed into the roadway just days after last summer's early June opening.

Vanderbilt said workers have been reducing the massive rocks to a more manageable size, and the chunks will be used by the contractor hired to repair the Sun Road's historic masonry walls.

"Which is good," Vanderbilt said, "because we're short of usable rock for that job."

Assuming the rock will be cleared soon, she said, plow crews are finishing mop-up work on the road's highest reaches and teams of shovelers are digging out the Logan Pass Visitor Center.

Although the road could open over the pass as soon as Friday, the center won't likely open until next week, she said. Limited facilities - namely portable toilets - will be set up in the pass parking lot until the Visitor Center opens.

"For now," she said, "the road is plowed out. But who knows what will happen tomorrow."

The meteorologists who think they know say Friday will bring snow down to 5,000 feet, a vertical half-mile below the elevation of the pass.

"We've said it before," Vanderbilt said, "it all depends on spring weather."

Any additional snow, she said, could cause renewed concerns about avalanches, further delaying the road's opening.

"We're not in charge of the weather," she said. "We just take it day by day."

If opening day arrives in the coming 10 days, it will beat the historic average of June 8. The earliest opening was May 16, 1987, and the latest was June 28, 2002.

Last year, the road opened at the first of June, only to close almost immediately when the two boulders dropped onto the roadway.

Reporter Michael Jamison can be reached at 1-800-366-7186 or at mjamison@missoulian.com

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