Peninsula Daily News news services
MARBLEMOUNT — Heavy thunderstorms over the weekend caused a washout that trapped hikers in North Cascades National Park and generated several landslides that buried parts of Highway 20, closing it indefinitely.
Sixty-five hikers were stranded with their vehicles Sunday and Monday in the national park when the washout took out part of the road that is the only access to the Cascade Pass Trailhead.
Maintenance crews built a temporary road have allowed the stranded hikers to go home
Marblemount Wilderness Information Center Supervisor Rosemary Seifried said Monday evening that crews were able to complete the passage a day after the roadway was washed out, dumping truckloads of gravel into a culvert.
The hikers were able to cross the culvert Monday night, Seifried said.
Now the roadway about 100 miles northeast of Seattle will remain closed until a permanent fix can be constructed.
Many of the hikers had parked at the Cascade Pass Trailhead at Marblemount, which is about a mile and a half from the washed-out section.
Officials used a helicopter to fly in food and water for the hikers early Monday afternoon but Seifried said there were no pressing medical problems.
Highway buried
The same storm that stranded the hikers also caused eight landslides that buried parts of Highway 20 — one of which piled dirt and rocks 25 feet high across the pavement — closing the road west of Rainy Pass.
The slides hit a 6-mile stretch of road just west of the pass, said Jeff Adamson, a spokesman for the Washington State Department of Transportation.
The biggest slide was about a quarter-mile long, he said. Altogether, there’s so much debris that outside contractors are being hired to help clear the mess.
Travelers still can get to the Methow Valley by crossing the Cascades on Interstate 90 or Highway 2, then looping around via highways 97 and 20.
From the Methow Valley, Adamson said, drivers can go as far as Rainy Pass, giving them access to trails on the east side of the closure.
