Lest Timber Road have all the fun, a small portion of Bacona Road north of Buxton is also slowly disintegrating.
“Washington County’s hills and slopes are beautiful, but they also increase the risk of landslides,” an email from the county read.
Timber Road is likely to be closed for years due to a landslide. Dixie Mountain Road north of North Plains is closed for the same reason.
Bacona Road isn’t closed, but it is in trouble.
“We’ve detected a landslide about three-fourths of a mile from the end of the pavement on Bacona Road,” Washington County’s Department of Land Use and Transportation said on a webpage created for the landslide.
The unstable slope the road rests on is currently causing erosion at the edge of the roadway, leaving the road open—for now—but in need of a long-term solution.
That solution will cost the county’s road fund an estimated $405,000.
As of June 29, LUT was in the process of selecting a contractor to stabilize the landslide and repair the road.
Construction is expected to begin in August and wrap up in September.
Elsewhere, the county is playing whack-a-mole with landslides near Hagg Lake. A multi-year project to fix five trouble spots on Scoggins Valley Road and West Shore Drive started in 2015 and finished in June, capping eight years of projects. But while completing the project, crews found another slide near the Cherry Tree trailhead.
“We’ve set up a barrier on the inner shoulder to protect people from traveling on the damaged pavement while we develop stabilization plans,” the county said.
And of course, there’s Highway 6.
Chas Hundley is the editor of the Banks Post and sister news publications the Gales Creek Journal and the Salmonberry Magazine. He grew up in Gales Creek and has a cat.
