Avalanche At Lookout Pass, Montana, Halts Traffic On I-90 Westbound Lanes

Westbound lanes of I-90 were closed at St. Regis, Montana, due to two avalanches that occurred around the Lookout Pass area Wednesday.

The St. Regis Travel Center said the lanes were shut down to allow a detour around the incident via Montana Highway 282. According to the Montana Department of Transportation (MDT), a car wreck also blocked the traffic on the highway near the avalanche.

MDT reported Wednesday afternoon a snow slide was blocking both the westbound lanes on I-90 roughly one mile east of the Montana-Idaho border on Lookout Pass, and motorists were warned about delays. MDT further said road conditions in Montana were slush/scattered slush, snow covered and some areas had scattered snow and ice.

Montana Highway Patrol Captain Jim Kitchin said, “No vehicles were caught in the avalanche and the MHP is assisting MDT in rerouting the traffic up MT Highway 135 to Highway 200. But even that sounds little treacherous. Pretty sure they’re getting a lot of snow on 200 right now.” He also said they were getting a lot of calls about the crashes due to the road conditons.

Though the avalanche was rellatively small, officials made a decision to close the road down until further notice due to the weather conditions.

According to MDT officials, the avalanche and the snow slide happened in the same week that also had rollovers, injury causing semi-truck crashes due to heavy snowfall and slick roads.

Meanwhile, Flathead Avalanche Center in Montana also issued its first warning of the season due to potential for large avalanches in the area. The authorities said Wednesday the Flathead, Swan and Glacier ranges were in the red zone due to avalanche danger.

Zach Guy, director of Flathead Avalanche Center, said though the storm was wrapping up, it had dumped over two feet of snow in the Flathead Range and upto two feet in the Swan and Whitefish ranges causing dangerous conditions. He said they could see avalanches breaking and the new snow was the most common problem they were facing. He added that some factors could make an avalance potentially huge and damaging.

“The danger is expected to go back down to considerable on Thursday but with more snow coming in, it could go back up. I’m expecting tricky conditions to carry on throughout the week, essentially because of that buried crust we are talking about,” Guy said.

Both Guy and Kitchin asked people to check the weather conditions before going out. With weather conditions like those at present, avalanches could run longer and the danger was not just in the high elevations.