Ashley National Forest road to be closed for repairs

DUCHESNE — A road that provides trail access in Ashley National Forest will close for repairs next week.

The Hades Canyon Road will be closed at the junction with North Fork Road near Defas' Dude Ranch from noon Sept. 4 through 3 p.m. Sept. 13. Crews will be making line-of-sight repairs to a quarter-mile stretch of the mountain road, which now has narrow shoulders, blind corners and steep drop-offs, Forest Service officials said.

"This segment of road has historically been difficult to navigate due to the potential of not seeing oncoming traffic, which then causes someone to either move to a very narrow shoulder or back up," said Valton Mortenson, Forest Service road engineer. "We're hopefully going to take the surprise out of not seeing oncoming rigs like horse trailers and passenger SUVs in this stretch of road."

The route is the only motorized access to the Grandview trailhead, an access point to the Grandaddy Basin area of the High Uintas wilderness of Ashley National Forest. During construction, Grandaddy Basin will still be accessible by way of the west fork of Rock Creek from the Rock Creek trailhead.