Mirror Lake Highway open through high terrain

Provo River Overlook off Mirror Lake Byway. Photo: TownLift // Kevin Cody

KAMAS, Utah – After three weeks of snow clearing along Mirror Lake Highway’s high terrain over Bald Mountain pass, the Utah Department of Transportation opened the scenic highway for the summer season on Friday. When crews began working, the road was covered is up to six feet of snow.

Travelers can now drive on S.R. 150 from Kamas to Evanston, Wyoming. There is still plenty of snow in the mountains from the Upper Falls of the Provo River north over Bald Mountain Pass to Christmas Meadows.

Todd Ovard, UDOT’s Kamas station supervisor, said Mirror Lake Highway is usually the last seasonally closed road to open up after winter. Guardsman’s Pass, which connects Empire Pass above Deer Valley to Big Cottonwood Canyon and Midway on the other side, opened May 23 this year.

“I think it’s been opened as early as right around the first of May,” Page recalled in an interview with KSL. “I believe in my career, it went to the ninth of July before we even got it open.”

At its highest point, the Mirror Lake Highway is 10,715 ft., making it the highest paved road in Utah. Temperatures on top of the Bald Mountain pass can be, on average, 20 degrees cooler than in Park City (which lies at 6,936 ft), making it a popular summer escape from the heat, with hiking and fishing opportunities abound.