JACKSON — The Wyoming Department of Transportation plans to reopen Teton Pass by the end of this week, less than three weeks after a June 8 landslide swept away 200 feet of Wyo. Highway 22.

Ahead of the highway’s reopening, a key question has been whether WYDOT would finish studying soils under a temporary bypass that’s next to the area that originally failed.

Preliminary results have indicated the earth is stable, engineers have said. But on Tuesday, Director Darin Westby, geologist James Dahill and Resident Engineer Bob Hammond said for the first time that WYDOT plans to complete the stability analysis before the road opens, which could happen as early as Friday.
“Absolutely,” Westby said. “I want one last double-check to make sure everything went the way it should.”

The News&Guide caught Westby at the tail end of a tour WYDOT organized for media and officials from the east and west side of the pass. As Westby, Hammond, Dahill and a representative from the governor’s office spoke, media formed a tight scrum around the speakers, and legislators, town councilors and commissioners watched, as state officials praised how quickly WYDOT has moved to fix the pass.

In the background, machinery rumbled uphill and down, paving the temporary bypass. In an interview after official speeches, Hammond said WYDOT is aiming to open the temporary road 24/7, with the only major restriction being a reduction in the speed limit so drivers can navigate the 11.2% incline.
A permanent fix is expected this fall.

“We’re hoping to have the new road in place by mid-November. That’s our goal,” Hammond told the News&Guide and other reporters. “But really, we’re in the very initial process.”
In the past two and a half weeks, WYDOT has scrambled to build the 611-foot-long bypass, mustering a team of contractors to work around the clock in the busy summer season and moving some 30,000 cubic feet of dirt to build a new road alignment on the inside of the curve that failed. The department’s speed has raised questions about whether state engineers were sacrificing safety for efficiency as they worked to reopen the critical lifeline connecting Jackson Hole with workers and community members in Teton Valley, Idaho.

In response to questions, WYDOT officials said that they would be completing the soil analysis before opening, and that state engineers plan to install a device in the road that will send real-time safety information to their phones, including information about water saturation and soil movement.