Environment & Energy
Related: About this forumSlow-Moving Glacial Landslide Closes Denali NP's Only Road Through Summer 2022, Possibly Later
The roads 92-mile route winds up, over and around sheer mountain passes before dead-ending at an old mining community at its westernmost point. When it was built, designers made what seemed like a reasonable assumption that worked for nearly a century: The mountainsides supporting the road would be stable. But it turns out that at one of the roads most precipitous points, a hidden menace was lurking under the surface. And it has woken up.
Halfway along the route, as the road curls past the steep cliffs and chutes of Polychrome Pass, park scientists have discovered that a rocky glacier lies underneath it. Warming temperatures are accelerating the glaciers movement downhill, carrying 300 feet of roadbed with it and jeopardizing continued access to some of the parks key attractions. In August, the slide prompted park managers to close the road just short of the halfway point, forcing lodges on the far side to conduct a costly evacuation and end their summer tourist season early. This week, they announced the closure would continue through the entire summer of 2022. Federal park officials now say theyre analyzing a $53 million plan to bridge the creeping pile of earth, with Congress poised to approve the money.
But for at least the next few years, the slow-moving landslide will interfere with one of Denalis prized tourist sites. And as continued warming destabilizes other key planks in Alaskas economy and threatens its infrastructure, the states elected leaders continue promoting the oil development that is helping to fuel the problem.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-apps/imrs.php?src=&w=916
The Robotic Total Station poised just beyond the weak part of the road at Pretty Rock collects data on the shifting geography of the area. (Ash Adams for The Washington Post)
Alaska ranks as the nations fastest-warming state, and it gets roughly one-fourth of its discretionary spending from oil and gas revenue. And as its senior senator, few officials embody this tension more than Lisa Murkowski (R). In an August Facebook post, Murkowski touted her work to secure federal money to fix the landslide. And less than a week later, her campaign scheduled a political fundraiser at the Anchorage home of the top Alaska executive of oil company ConocoPhillips the states top crude oil producer. Murkowski and the rest of Alaskas congressional delegation have blasted the Biden administrations moves to block oil development in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, and they support expanding drilling in the National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska through ConocoPhillips Willow project.
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https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/2021/10/15/alaskas-most-popular-national-park-climate-change-threatens-only-road-out/
hunter
(38,341 posts)Overview
Updated: October, 2021
The Pretty Rocks landslide displaces 100 yards (90 m) of the full width of the Denali Park Road near its midpoint at Mile 45.4 (km 73). In recent years this landslide has evolved from a minor maintenance concern to causing substantial road restrictions.
The Pretty Rocks landslide has been active since at least the 1960s, and probably since well before the Denali Park Road was built through this area in 1930. Before 2014, the landslide only caused small cracks in the road surface and required moderate maintenance every 2-3 years. However, in 2014 road maintenance crews noticed a substantial speed up. By 2016 the movement had increased further and a monitoring program was begun. The rate of road movement within the landslide evolved from inches per year prior to 2014, to inches per month in 2017, inches per week in 2018, inches per day in 2019, and up to 0.65 inches per hour in 2021.
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https://www.nps.gov/dena/learn/nature/pretty-rocks.htm