I drive the Robert Campbell Highway three times a week delivering medical supplies and postal mail to the communities of Ross River and Faro, and again yesterday the Campbell Highway was ignored for any snow removal. The exception was the Ross River area where crews worked quickly to clean the highway and streets, compared to the distance between Faro and Carmacks which never saw any snow removal or sanding. By evening the highway was two deep ruts in more than 20 cm deep snow.
The North Klondike Highway south out of Carmacks was also deep in snow and there were two sets of ruts where constant traffic had packed down the snow. Usually driving in fresh deep snow is not a problem, but when snow is packed in crisscrossing ruts it can pull you in all sorts of directions and is slippery.
My usual four hour drive between Faro and Whitehorse became seven hours.
Are there NO plow or grader drivers in this area?
Tuesday October 22 was also another of those wonderful days when little or no maintenance was done on the North portion of the Robert Campbell Highway, and surprisingly little maintenance was done on the North Klondike Highway between Whitehorse and Carmacks. After having all day Tuesday to work upon the Klondike Highway, it was plowed (not to it's edges), but not sanded.
While I could ignore the conditions of the Klondike Highway, the Robert Campbell Highway required pushing snow mid-day on the way out, and on the return run that evening. The only snowplow I saw all day was at the turnaround (km 532?) and only a short section South of this was plowed. The rest of the highway might have received a single, middle of the road pass by a snowplow.
The hills out of Carmacks were not plowed nor were they sanded. Around 1:00 pm I saw a private pickup truck that went off the road trying to climb one of the hills just South of the Columbia Disaster pullout. On my return around 9:00 pm I encountered a pilot truck stuck on the hill blocking my ability to get past safely on the icy surface which contained a lot of spun out marks from other vehicles. The chained up tractor eventually pulled the pilot vehicle up the hill. (No idea if it had snow tires or 4wd).
After this I encounter a tractor unit with two fuel tankers slid across the highway after trying to climb the hill without chains. Being around a blind corner and icy, I almost collided with the truck with one of options being to go into the ditch. Thankfully I was able to stop, but I needed the cement blocks along the edge of the highway to prevent further sliding down the hill. I stood guard up the hill and around the corner while the tractor chained up, and I was then able to rub my front tire along the cement blocks down the hill until I reached a more reasonable section of the highway.
This highway was in unsafe condition Tuesday October 22 and yesterday as well, and nothing was done about it. It is in unsafe conditions many times each winter, and it seems to be the last place in the Yukon to be plowed or sanded.
More must be done to keep this highway open and safe in Winter and there appears to be only one or two snow removal machines for a larger area around Carmacks. Drury Creek used to be excellent at removing snow, but yesterday there appears to be no evidence anything was done.
Stephen Pike
Tagish
