March 5, 2001
Crews from both sides of the pass begin moving their equipment in place to start clearing the highway.  From the west side, we moved the Kodiak Blower, 22A2-11, to MP-134 along with two snow-plows. We are opening up the westbound lane and both shoulders. The two snow-plows worked from MP-134 to MP-148 plowing back the top snow and exposing the ice bottom. This opening we are dealing with a very thick layer of ice bottom from MP-134 east in the westbound lane. It ranges from 4 to 8 inches thick and is usually the result of heavy snowmobile traffic on that lane during the winter.

March 12-15, 2001
On March 12th, the Twisp crew started at the Silver Star Gate at Milepost 170.6 with one Kodiak snow blower from the Colfax maintenance shed. The snow depth encountered thus far is 30 to 45 inches and in the avalanche zones the depths have been 6 to 18 feet, which is less than previous years. The crew obtained a second blower on March 13th; the progress has been good so far with the exception of the breakdowns. The snow deposited in the slide chutes has included a lot of debris (rocks, trees and tree limbs) brought down with the slides.

The west side crew worked from MP-156.2 to the summit of Rainy Pass. One blower worked at the summit widening and the other worked west to Swamp Creek widening, finishing the day heading eastbound just below Porcupine Creek. We had two snowplows working on the bottom and plowing back the shoulders. We finished widening from just below Porcupine Creek to the summit of Rainy Pass. We worked the hill from the summit east to Bridge Creek, MP-158.7 making a round trip, widening the road to full width. The plow trucks worked from MP-148 to Bridge Creek clearing off the ice.

March 16-21, 2001
This past weekend North Cascade Highway received 10 inches of new snow that caused three avalanche chutes to slide in again. The Avalanche crew advised the Twisp crew to stay clear of the avalanche zones starting at milepost 165. They began the clean up above milepost 165 Tuesday under Avalanches watchful eye, the two crews joined up in the final cleanup of this winters snowfall.

March 22, 2001
WSDOT crews open the Cascade Highway to the public. Our crews finished the job in record time, faster than expected. The condition of the roadway, shows the crews pride in their work.