Clark resident Lloyd Thiel had known the issues with County Road 7RP for years. He recalled times when he’d be driving a full dump truck down a winding, one-car-length stretch of road — as the dirt road winds down from the bench above to pass alongside the Clarks Fork River below — as a truck pulling a large horse trailer tried to drive up the road.

The truck with the trailer had to back up, because there was no way any two vehicles could get by.

“It’s one of the most dangerous sections of road in the county,” Thiel said.

So, he said soon after becoming a county commissioner in 2018, a fellow Clark resident asked him if he could do something about the road. Thiel got to work.

Four years later, Thiel stood on the bench above the winding road as much of the Cody public works vehicles took chunks out of the south side of the hill to widen the road.

“The fact that the county got this done, it’s a pretty big feat,” he said. “The fact that it only took me four years, that’s almost a record.”

It was done in near record time, he said, considering the bureaucratic red tape the county had to work through before getting approval from the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) to widen the road. He said while BLM officials were helpful and supportive, the steps that needed to be taken were daunting to many who considered it.

Park County Public Works Project Engineer Ben McDonald too, was surprised to see work being done.

“The county has been trying to do this one for 30-plus years,” he said.

Now multiple projects are being done on the road in a way that solves multiple issues and at a fraction of the costs it might otherwise take to do.

“Safety and maintenance have been the primary benefits for undertaking this project,” McDonald said. “There are significant secondary benefits for undertaking the existing project as well.”

That includes using material that is being removed to widen the canyon to improve the condition of County Road 7RP in various other locations and also in conjunction with several culvert replacement projects where Paint Creek crosses County Roads 7RP and 7QT for fish passage in conjunction with the East Yellowstone Chapter of Trout Unlimited.

Thanks to BLM approval, the county is able to cut into one wall of the bench as the road winds down toward the river, which will not only provide room for two vehicles to cross each other, but also provide the road surface needed to build up parts of the road near the river that have been repeatedly washed out by the rain coming off the bench.

Thiel said the road maintenance below could’ve been done anytime, but was practically cost prohibitive to truck material from north Cody. Being able to cut into the bench to widen the road was what took wading through federal bureaucracy to accomplish, he said.

A renewed interest in fixing the issues with the road, which briefly led to a loss of school bus and mail service nearly 10 years ago due to bad road conditions, was predicated by numerous maintenance issues, especially snowstorms and flooding issues and associated repairs that occurred in 2017-2018.

In early 2019, commissioners and public works staff re-visited the need for improvements on CR 7RP and initiated discussions with BLM staff to undertake the project in earnest, McDonald said. Park County commissioned a private firm (High Country Archaeology in Ralston) to complete a Class III Cultural Resource Inventory of the proposed project area per the BLM’s policy and procedure. This inventory was completed in April of 2021. Once complete, site visits were made to further dial in the project limits and begin the process of design for construction. 

Next, Park County Engineer Brian Edwards began the procurement process to obtain a drone/aerial survey to collect topographical data and establish project control. Once complete, he submitted the construction plan, reclamation plan and erosion control plan to BLM, along with a form to amend the existing Right of Way authorization.

The BLM then initiated a National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA ) document to be reviewed by BLM specialists, in addition to public comment. Tribal consultation was also sought during this process. In September/October of 2023, BLM initiated a second two week public comment period. Once complete, BLM signed the NEPA document and in October issued Park County two grants. One was a grant to upgrade the road right of way and the second grant was for the temporary work area.

Now, not only is the work well underway, it’s being done relatively on the cheap.

The total costs for the current project and improvements along 7RP are estimated to be around $350,000, although McDonald said approximately $250,000 of this is regular cost that they would have to operate the fleet in various locations throughout the county anyway.

In widening the road and thus removing material to be used as road base, they are also saving a bunch, as McDonald estimated the value of the material at a minimum of just under $200,000.

If this material was not available, the alternative to improve 7RP would be a material haul to the 7RP location from the North Cody Pit, a 55-mile round trip. The total number of trips to deliver 49,700 tons of material from North Cody Pit would be roughly 2,500 trips, which equates to 137,500 total miles of haul. 

“Minimum haul cost from Cody would be roughly $61,875.00 and does not completely cover cost of equipment, equipment maintenance, use of the highway, etc., McDonald said. “The material on site at 7RP is ideal for this use and definitely pencils out as a good investment.”

As of early January, the project was well on the way to being completed.