North Cascades Hwy closing, at least temporarily

At noon on Monday, the gates at milepost 134 and milepost 171 are swinging closed and when the current series of fronts have passed, state Transportation Department maintenance and avalanche crews will reassess whether it can be reopened for Thanksgiving or after that, or not at all.

According to a statement from state DOT, "We were pretty optimistic on Friday that we'd be open through the weekend and we actually only got about 15 inches of snow. Most of that came on Sunday. The forecast for Monday called for more.  Since that 15" had put us at about 30" total - it only takes another 6" to put us in the avalanche range (3' pretty much fills a chute). It started snowing hard again about 9 a.m. and by 10:30, we'd gotten 4" and had three slides come in. That prompted moving the temporary closure time back to noon instead of 6 p.m. tonight."

DOT says they trying to keep it open until 6 Monay night so the Park Service, Forest Service and DOT crew could identify vehicles parked at trailheads, and either make contact with the drivers or leave a message so they'd know the highway was closing. They got the list part and the windsheild notes posted, but now, they are leaving crewmembers at the gates to let folks out (and keep track of cars still in the closure zone).