Forest Service partially clears Middle Ridge Road

Almost a year after a landslide on the night of Nov. 20, 2023, blocked and destroyed parts of Middle Ridge Road, the U.S. Forest Service was able to clear two of the four locations where the slide crossed over the switchback-style road.

The clearings allowed for the rescue of Stan Guggenbickler’s abandoned truck, which became trapped in the slide debris last November and remained there until the blockages were cleared last month.

Despite the partial clearing, Wrangell District Ranger Tory Houser expects the road, as well as the Middle Ridge Cabin, to remain closed through next summer.

The public-use cabin can only be accessed via the old logging road, and Middle Ridge cabin is one of the U.S. Forest Service’s “most popular cabins,” Houser’s predecessor said last winter.

Houser said “it will be a lot of work” to clear and repair the remaining damaged areas of the road.

Not only will crews need to remove debris, but she said the slide “pulled” the road down the mountain — meaning the road base will need to be repaired or rebuilt in addition to the clearing of debris. Houser said the repair process will be a long one, citing budgetary restraints as the reason the Forest Service was only able to clear the lower part of the road.

The Forest Service is working with a team of geotechnical engineers to survey the areas and better determine exactly what and how much is strewn across the road. Houser said the agency will continue working with the engineers throughout the entire process.

While she does not have a concrete timeline for any reopenings, the ranger suspects the road and cabin will remain closed through next summer.

The Forest Service recently received funding through the Great American Outdoors Act for upgrades to the Middle Ridge Cabin, but due to its current inaccessibility Houser said the agency is exploring other avenues to best use that money.

Though the road was damaged on the same night as a separate landslide that claimed the lives of six people, the Middle Ridge slide had a different starting point. It originated a couple miles inland from the Pats Creek Road turnoff at around 1,200 feet elevation. The scar stops roughly 300 feet from the Middle Ridge turnoff at Pats Creek.

The Forest Service reported 35 slides across Southeast that night, spurred on by high winds and heavy rain, with several slides blocking roads on Prince of Wales Island.

 

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