Loop Road

by Caroline Byrd

As roads go, the Loop Road (a.k.a. the Louis Lake Road) is a good one. Built by the Civilian Conservation Corps in the 1930s, it winds its way for 28 miles through the southern end of the Wind River Mountains. It’s a narrow, dirt, scenic road that keeps your attention while you’re driving and makes you feel like you’re up in the mountains a long way from town. The Loop Road isn’t a loop on its own; rather, it’s an alternate way of getting from the town of Lander to South Pass, where, at the end of the dirt road you can loop back to Lander on Highway 28.

From Lander, the road is paved as it curves along the banks of the Middle Fork of the Popo Agie River and through Sinks Canyon State Park, where the river disappears into a limestone sinkhole and rises again a quarter-mile downstream on the other side of the road. Midway through the canyon, the road enters the Shoshone National Forest and stays on the Forest for the rest of its length. It leaves Sinks Canyon at Bruce’s Bridge, where the pavement ends, and climbs six miles of switchbacks up to lakes, meadows, campgrounds and trailheads that lead into the Popo Agie Wilderness and the backcountry of the Wind Rivers.

Granted, the 26 unpaved miles of the Loop Road are bumpy and have long stretches of washboard that could use a few more passes by the road grader each summer. But the road doesn’t seem to disrupt the elk, deer, moose and bighorn sheep that migrate across it on their way from winter to summer range. Trees line the road’s corridor for much of its distance as it cuts a narrow, winding swath through the forest.

Once the snow flies in the fall, the Forest Service closes the road until early summer, when snowdrifts no longer block the way. Most years, it’s open to vehicles for about five months, except for snowmobilers, who use it regularly as part of the Continental Divide snowmobile trail. During the winter, the road is also popular with dogsledders, cross-country skiers and a hardy band of us who have a tradition of skiing the length of the road once each winter.

Except for the first mile and a half of the road from the Forest boundary to Bruce’s Bridge that the Forest Service paved, widened and straightened in 1995, the Loop Road still looks much the same as it has for the last 60-plus years — a narrow dirt backcountry road used mostly by locals and intrepid visitors. But all that is very likely to change.

Million Dollar Miles

In 1984, the Forest Service included the Loop Road in the Forest Highways Program, a joint program with the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) which focuses on Forest Service roads that serve communities within and adjacent to National Forests. The Intermodal Surface Transportation Efficiency Act (ISTEA) has significantly increased annual funding for the Forest Highway Program during the last several years, boosting it from $112 million in 1997 to $127 million in 1998 and $162 million for 1999 through 2003. Nearly 70 percent of all funding for public-lands highways is being allocated to Forest Service roads.

This funding is parceled out to states containing National Forests with the usual federal budget prerequisite: if you don’t spend it, you won’t get it again. The funds are earmarked for forest highway design and construction. Such work must meet federal highway standards, which typically cost around a million dollars per mile.

In other words, there is a bundle of federal money available to pave, widen, straighten and realign roads like the Loop Road. And once the money’s on the table, it seems impossible to stop the bulldozers. Thanks to the Forest Highway Program, the "Chief Joseph Highway" over Dead Indian Pass into Sunlight Basin and the Clarks Fork Valley, the Snowy Range Road, the Battle Mountain Road, the Fall Creek Road and most likely one of your favorite scenic dirt roads has been or will be paved, transforming them into major highways.

Public Opposition Falls on Deaf Ears

In the fall of 1996, the Forest Service, FHWA and Wyoming Department of Transportation presented the public with a proposal to "upgrade" the Loop Road. At the first public meeting in Lander, the agencies assured citizens that if the public opposed the project, it would go away.

The public is opposed, at least to a complete reconstruction. More than 1,200 citizens submitted "scoping" comments on the agencies’ proposal and 1,068 people completed official FHWA surveys that were distributed in Lander and throughout Fremont County. Of the survey respondents, 20 percent said they did not want any improvements made to the road, while 75 percent said they wanted some improvements made. The vast majority of people who wanted improvements did not want reconstruction and a brand new road; most want spot improvements, a little more gravel, some turn-outs and better drainage.

That’s not what we’re going to get. As a Federal Highway project, a new Loop Road will have to be at least 22 feet wide plus shoulders, ditches and "clear zones" (i.e. no trees, hills or boulders to block your view for 30 feet ahead). The switchbacks will have to be realigned to make wider turns or even moved all together. The FHWA’s preferred surface is pavement.

Most frustrating of all is that none of the public response made a bit of difference to the agencies. After three public meetings, during which the vast majority of citizens who attended expressed increasing concerns about how this project is plowing ahead, the agencies haven’t budged in their campaign to rebuild the road.

Show Me the Money!

There’s another twist that reveals the agencies’ determination to pave the road. As a Forest Highway Project, the FHWA must find a road-maintenance agency to take over maintaining the road once it’s rebuilt. States and counties are usually charged with this work.

Back in 1989, Fremont County agreed to take on the maintenance responsibilities for a rebuilt Loop Road. Why they would want to take on the financial burden (around $60,000 a year) to maintain a Forest Service road that nobody lives on and is only open five months a year, when the county is already $23 million behind in county road maintenance, is anyone’s guess.

Nonetheless, they did, until the last county elections, when two new commissioners were elected on platforms opposing county money for the Loop Road. That should have been the beginning of the end of the project: no maintenance agreement, no reconstruction project.

However, the Forest Service recently added "public road authority" to its responsibilities, allowing the agency to assume road-maintenance duties. Since the Forest Service admits that it only has enough money to maintain 18 percent of its overall road system, it may have a hard time finding the funds needed to maintain the Loop Road.

If the Forest Service does assume road-maintenance responsibilities, the reconstruction of the Loop Road can proceed. The reconstruction money is available, the agencies are moving ahead, the public’s opposition is being ignored, a rebuilt Loop Road seems inevitable and we will lose yet another rural, rugged, winding, narrow, dirt, mountain road. Instead we’ll get a wide, high-speed, paved, easily accessible "scenic" highway.

Paving the Backcountry

While that’s bad enough, the implications for the Wind River Mountains and the southeastern edge of the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem are frightening. With a paved Loop Road in the southern end of the range and the Union Pass Road on the northern end of the range under consideration as a Forest Highway Program project, two heavily used paved roads could cut off the Winds from the Absaroka, Gros Ventre and Wyoming Mountain Ranges — and from the heart of the ecosystem. The movement of bears, wolves, lynx, big game, forest carnivores and a host of other species could be thwarted by highways. More people will travel into Wind River Range wilderness areas, and their wildness will be compromised.

The Forest Highway Program needs serious scrutiny and the Forest Service and FHWA must reassess their determination to transform our backcountry roads into federal highways.

What You Can Do

The Draft Environmental Impact Statement (DEIS) for the Loop Road is expected to be released for public comment early this summer. Please contact:

Bert McCauley
Federal Highway Admin.
555 Zang Street, Room 259
Lakewood CO 80228

(303)969-5924

Bert.Mccauley@fhwa.dot.gov

Ask to be put on the mailing list for the EIS.