Warm weather, snow melt and spring rains are creating soft road surfaces and spring break-up conditions on many Flathead National Forest roads, leading agency officials to implement the annual road closures on March 11.
To provide for safe transportation and protect the condition of the road system, the Forest Service annually implements temporary road closures and load limits across the forest. For the next few months forest road managers will check conditions and sign roads as “closed” or assign a load limit as appropriate based on the local conditions.
“Traveling on soft road beds can cause damage which often results in longer-term closures to fix the problems,” Flathead National Forest Supervisor Chip Weber stated. “Temporary restrictions are an important tool we use to help protect the road surface and ensure that the road drainage works properly. We ask all forest users to respect these spring break-up restrictions.”