American Fork Canyon and other roads that are closed

[Wasatch Rebel]

On Monday, the wife and I went up American Fork Canyon for what I thought was going to be some four-wheeling, only the road I wanted to take--The North Fork Road near Tibble Fork, had a sign saying that it was closed in 1/2 mile. So, I thought we could go up past Silver Flat Reservoir and take that road up there, but it was crossed just before it crossed the stream that flows into the lake. What's up with that?

Geez, and the Butterfield Canyon Road is still closed too--and it's paved! What gives with all these road closures? Just too much late season snow, or is there some other reason?

[Skylinerider]

Trying to mitigate the damage that is done when the trails are wet in the spring and people are impatient to get up the mountains and tear stuff up.

[Wasatch Rebel]

Okay--that makes sense, but many of these roads are already so bad that it wouldn't make much difference for us impatient types.:eek2:

[fourtycal]

This weekend I went up and found most of it open. The 194 up to Forest Lake was open and driveable, Mary-ellen Gulch was good, Dry Fork had some traffic and looked well traveled and I didn't drive it but there were camp trailers coming down the Pole Line Pass road.
The only road I found still closed is the road to Mineral Basin, the road has been washed out around a big culvert, the guy at the pay station said they will rebuild it when the stream dies down a bit.:2thumbs:

[canyoncaver]

When will Guardsmans Pass open? I was very surprised to find that one still closed last week.

[tallsteve]

Check out the recent photo of Guardsman Pass here: http://www.utahmountainbiking.com/UMBphpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=7599

[accadacca]

Dang.

http://www.neumarker.com/images/thepass.jpg

[canyoncaver]

Yeah. Dang was my thoughts exactly. This photo shows exactly what I saw. I take it they won't plow it, they just wait for it to melt off? I live in Heber and often use this road as a much preferred alternative to Parleys for going to REI, good restaurants, etc. This is only my second summer in Utah but I didn't realize that it stayed closed this late in the year.