Guardsman Pass is closed. Park City drivers heading to Big Cottonwood Canyon will need to find another way through at least Thursday morning.
The Utah Department of Transportation (UDOT) shut down the mountain route at 9:30 p.m. Monday, Oct. 12, after winter conditions made the road dangerous, TownLift reported. The closure blocks the section of Guardsman Pass that connects the Park City area with State Route 190 in Big Cottonwood Canyon.
UDOT estimates the road will reopen Thursday, Oct. 15, though an exact time has not been set. Drivers can still use SR-190 below the closure point.
Heavy snow behind the closure
The shutdown came as remnants of Tropical Storm Rachel mixed with a slow-moving low-pressure system from the Pacific Northwest, KSL reported. A foot or more of snow is possible near the top of the Cottonwood Canyons, with snow levels expected between 8,000 and 9,000 feet elevation.
Snowbird reported 10 inches at its snow stake Tuesday, Oct. 13.
The storm had already forced a separate closure of Big Cottonwood Canyon on Sunday night, Oct. 11, when flooding and debris blocked SR-190. That road reopened just before 2 a.m. Monday, according to KUTV.
John Gleason, UDOT's public relations director, described the broader storm's toll on Big Cottonwood Canyon in an ABC4 interview Monday. "It was an intense storm, and it brought down a lot of trees, a lot of rocks, just everything that you see on the mountainside here," Gleason said of the flooding and debris that had closed SR-190 the night before.
Temporary, not seasonal
UDOT has listed this as a temporary weather closure. The full seasonal shutdown of Guardsman Pass, which happens every year when winter sets in for good, has not been announced.
The same storm system dusted Jupiter Peak at Park City Mountain with the season's first snow.
Drivers can check real-time road conditions on UDOT's road status page or through the UDOT Traffic mobile app, staffed around the clock.
