A landslide in the Teton Mountains destroyed part of a highway linking Idaho to Jackson, Wyoming, forcing authorities to close the highway indefinitely Saturday just as the area entered its summer tourist season.
No one was injured when a section of the Teton Pass “failed catastrophically,” the Wyoming Department of Transportation said in a statement Saturday. The highway west of Jackson had been closed to traffic before it gave way, and crews were working to build a detour around a section where a crack had appeared in the surface days earlier.
The department said it expected a long-term closure. Gov. Mark Gordon of Wyoming said in a separate statement that geologists and engineers would “develop a long-term solution to rebuild the highway.”
Even a brief closure would pose major logistical challenges for the area, in part because the highway serves Jackson Hole, a major tourist center in Teton County. Travel and tourism is Wyoming’s second-largest industry, according to the Jackson Hole Travel and Tourism Board, and the county received about $1.7 billion in travel-related spending in 2022.
“We understand this highway is a lifeline for travelers, deliveries, access to health care and tourism, especially with limited alternatives and the summer season upon us,” said Darin Westby, director of the state Department of Transportation, in a separate statement.
The department’s “engineers, surveyors and geologists mobilized quickly to try to keep the road viable as long as possible, but a catastrophic failure could not be avoided,” Westby said.
The Jackson Hole Chamber of Commerce said on its website that travelers can still reach the Jackson area from the west by taking two other highways through the Snake River Canyon. But that detour adds more than an hour of driving time, local media outlet WyoFile reported.
The section of Wyoming State Highway 22 that collapsed was initially closed earlier in the week after cracks appeared on the surface. It reopened after crews repaired cracks, but was closed again after another landslide a few miles away sent mud and debris onto the road, the Department of Transportation said.
The department said in its statement Saturday that its crews were still working to clear mud and debris.