Flooding closes Park's Inside Road

The Inside North Fork Road, Glacier National Park’s oldest road, will need some repair work this spring before it can fully open. Logging Creek has braided into several channels just south of the Logging Creek Ranger Station, and the road is closed between Logging and Fish creeks.

As of last week, one channel had plugged a culvert and was flowing over the road, severely damaging it. A smaller channel split off from the main channel and was flowing through the Logging Creek Campground and down the Inside Road.

Damage to the campground will be relatively easy to fix once the water level goes down, but road repairs will require at least a new culvert and possibly more work. The new channel cut deeply into the road — at least two feet or more.

Park spokeswoman Denise Germann said there’s no timeline for the repairs, but the Park plans to fix the road this summer.

This isn’t the first time the road has been damaged by flooding. Anaconda Creek has also proven problematic in recent years as it, like Logging Creek, braided into several channels. Road crews fixed the Anaconda Creek damage with a series of culverts.

Last year, the road was damaged by high water and didn’t open until August. In 2006, a fall flood damaged the roadway, and portions remained closed for a few years until a slump was fixed.

The Inside Road is also threatened by the North Fork of the Flathead. Over the years, the river has eaten away at a bank just upstream of Quartz Creek, creating an undercut.

The unimproved dirt road provides access to several popular backcountry trailheads as it winds its way north from Fish Creek to Kintla Lake.