Willard Mountain road gets $500K renovation

Getting "inspiration" should be a much smoother process soon in Box Elder County, with $500,000 in government stimulus funds going toward maintenance of the heavily eroded Willard Mountain road.

Ogden Forest Service ranger Chip Sibbernsen said the project will not widen the approximately 14-mile-long road from Mantua through Willard Basin to the mountain skyline. However, the project will smooth out the road, remove rocks and create much improved drainages.

This scenic "back way" road, which ends at 9,422 feet above sea level, at aptly named Inspiration Point, offers stunning, bird's-eye views of Willard Bay, the Great Salt Lake, northern Weber County and southern Box Elder County.

"We looked for projects that are shovel ready," Sibbernsen said.

That means work will begin on the road this summer and hopefully be completed by fall. Box Elder County is receiving the money and will hire a contractor for the road work.

"This is an extremely heavily used road," Sibbernsen said, especially for ATVs.

The work will also improve a popular side road to Devil's Gate.

Sibbernsen stressed that the road will remain only suitable for ATVS, motorcycles or high-clearance vehicles. "We don't want to make this a high-speed road," he said. "We want to make it more reliable."

Even so, he said, a Box Elder County commissioner told him he recalled riding a full-size bus up the road during high school decades ago, when it was smoother. Other people recall driving passenger cars up there in the 1970s, before the road deteriorated from a lack of maintenance.

Construction details are still being worked out, but there is a chance the road could be closed during the work. Sibbernsen said one option being considered is having crews work four days a week on the road, leaving three days on the weekend for recreational use.

Another part of the work will involve using boulders as barriers to prevent ATVs from using unauthorized side trails that foster unnecessary erosion.

The upper Willard road is blocked by snow until late July some years. Some vehicles parked at Inspiration Point on a summer afternoon reflect the sun like a mirrored signal and can been seen some afternoons from as far away as western Layton or Kaysville.

Inspiration Point is also a lofty place to jump-start moderately difficult hikes to nearby peaks. Willard Peak, about a mile to the southeast, is the tallest point in Box Elder County at 9,764 feet. Willard Peak is 52 feet higher than Ben Lomond Peak (9,712 feet), another 1.5 miles away on the Skyline Trail.

The road was originally built in the 1930s by the Civilian Conservation Corps to help create terraces in the area to prevent future flash floods that had plagued the town of Willard below.

E-MAIL: lynn@desnews.com