Glacier Park's Going-to-the-Sun Road won't open to vehicles this weekend

People hoping for a Going-to-the-Sun Road vehicle opening this weekend will be disappointed. 

Glacier National Park spokeswoman Autumn Sifuentes said Thursday crews have been putting up guardrails and clearing rocks from the road in preparation, but it isn’t ready for a complete opening. 

The road opened last year to vehicles from St. Mary to Logan Pass on June 14 and then the entire length on June 16. 

Currently the road is open to vehicles to Avalanche Creek on the west side and Jackson Glacier Overlook on the east side. 

The hiker biker closure is just past Big Bend this weekend, about three miles or so below Logan Pass (or 13 miles up from the vehicle closure) on the west side and near the East Side Tunnel on the east side. 

The National Weather Service is saying the high peaks could see some snow Friday into early Saturday, but generally lighter amounts, about 2 inches or so. 

The weather is supposed to warm up, with highs right around 80 by Sunday and mid 80s Monday and Tuesday. The next chance of rain is Wednesday, with highs in the 70s. 

In the past seven days, West Glacier has seen 0.8 inches of rain on top of about 3 inches of rain that fell from late May to early June. So expect muddy trails and once it warms up a bit, plenty of mosquitos. Streams are also running high, so extreme caution should be taken crossing waterways or recreating on rivers. Having said that, the mainstem Flathead River was dropping and clearing and looked fishable.

As far as plowing is concerned, the crews were through the Big Drift a couple of weeks ago, which marks the end of the plowing for the road.