When COVID-19 forced the temporary closure of Glacier National Park in late March, many residents of Northwest Montana assumed the pandemic would stall one of the region’s most prominent rites of spring — the plowing of the famed Going-to-the-Sun Road.
Turns out, not even a global pandemic could halt the rumbling fleet of safety-yellow snowplows and excavators that converge each April on Glacier’s iconic alpine highway, although this year’s daunting task is being dispatched by a smaller crew in order to comply with social-distancing guidelines.
Still, the plows are making progress clearing the Sun Road of its winter weight, which is a more complicated task than some observers might think.