How Bryce Canyon plows 18 miles of road to Rainbow Point after a snowstorm

Bryce Canyon's winter roads are white on purpose. After the entrance sign, most of the first three miles of road stay covered in compacted snow, and the park uses rock cinders instead of salt. This NPS article follows the Roads and Trails crew through a snow morning.

Image from the National Park Service's page.

A park with one main road

The main road is 18 miles long and keeps climbing: about 1,350 feet from the north entrance to Rainbow Point at the south end. Weather can differ greatly between the ends, and the crew has seen both a blizzard above the S-turns at Mile 8 while the developed area is sunny, and the reverse. The higher southern end generally gets at least 2–3 inches more snow per storm.

Roads and Trails Foreman Floyd Winder watches radar, Doppler, several news channels and weather services to predict snow. The crew has theories, though not certainties, about the jet stream: a jet stream staying north before diving toward Utah should bring colder, drier storms, usual in La Niña winters; one arriving from the south, typical of El Niño years, should bring warmer, wetter ones.

Jet stream variations between El Niño and La Niña patterns. Climate.gov.

When more than an inch or two is forecast, Winder has staff arrive at 6 a.m. and then decides whether to close the Rainbow Gate at Mile 3. It seals off the southern 15 miles until the plows have cleared them. The first three miles, the "developed area" with viewpoints, trailheads, North Campground, the Visitor Center and employee housing, always come first.

The morning's run

The fleet is two skid-steer snowblowers, a one-ton plow truck, a grader tractor, a front-loader with a snowblower attachment and three ten-wheeler plows. The ten-wheelers need a Commercial Driver's License and have names: "Dino" (over 30 years old, from Dinosaur National Monument), "Nickels" (three 5's on its plate) and "OPEC" (a gas guzzler). Spare parts matter: Dino's fan clutch came from a junkyard in Indiana, and Nickels' 1997 wiper arm is discontinued.

OPEC clears snow from the Bryce Point parking lot. NPS photo.

The trucks clear the entrance and the Visitor Center area, then Sunrise, Sunset, Inspiration and Bryce Points, while skid-steers follow to blow out the viewpoint lots. Residential areas are plowed so staff can reach the Visitor Center before it opens at 8 a.m., fire hydrants are made reachable, and North Campground goes last so campers are not woken before 8. Buildings and Utilities staff handle detail work with a skid-steer, a small tractor and shovels. On a good day it is done well before lunchtime.

A skid-steer snowblower clears the Sunset Point area. NPS photo.

Why the road stays white

The Utah Department of Transportation deploys 215,000 tons of salt a year on state roads. Salt can kill roadside plants and draw wildlife onto the road, so the park uses rock cinders. They give traction on hills, turns, shady spots and at stop signs but do not melt compacted snow. The closed Rainbow Gate lets much of the road beyond Mile 3 melt clear.

Compacted snow beside the closed Rainbow Gate. NPS photo.

Known trouble spots are near the Rainbow Gate, the hill near the Lodge, the road to Bryce Point and the hill above the fee booths. Plow operator Kelton Neilson says cars can make it but drivers can't, and that the plow trucks are rear-wheel drive. The most common cause of slide-offs is speed. Crews also see cars following plows too closely and visitors standing under the snowblower chute, where rocks and ice balls are mixed into the snow.

Vehicles mostly have trouble when travelling too fast. NPS photo.

Beyond the gate

Once the developed area is clear, the three plows go south of the gate, leap-frogging from viewpoint to viewpoint, Swamp Canyon at Mile 6 onward to Rainbow Point. If weather allows, the whole road can be plowed in a day. The 4-mile meadow and the area burned by the 2009 Bridge Fire along Whiteman Bench drift worst; on tight corners, snowbanks can reach 4 to 5 times the average snowpack.

Plows begin their push south beyond the Rainbow Gate. NPS photo.

When snow is more than a few feet deep, or very wet, the front-loader leads and a grader knocks down the walls it leaves. During the 2018–2019 government shutdown, crews could not plow beyond the gate for over a month; four storms then arrived back to back, followed by rain, and the 15 miles took a month and a half to clear. Sections reopen in stages: Farview Point at Mile 10, Natural Bridge at Mile 12.5 and Ponderosa Canyon at Mile 15, which have lots big enough for RVs to turn. Normally the gate stays closed a day or two after a single storm.

How winter access began

For its first 10 years as a national park, Bryce Canyon was not open in winter. A 1938 agreement with the State Road Commission had state crews plow the road, and by the mid-1950s at the latest the park had its own plow. Visitors from November through May are advised to check the park's Current Conditions and Visiting in Winter pages and the Utah Department of Transportation's traffic page.

Sources

• National Park Service, Bryce Canyon National Park, https://www.nps.gov/articles/000/the-road-to-rainbow-snow-removal-at-bryce-canyon-national-park.htm ; rewritten in hubnx's own words.