Battle Pass highway reopens, restoring summer access to Snowy Range route

Battle Pass reopened May 1, restoring the 23-mile crossing on Wyoming Highway 70 and giving Albany County drivers back a direct summer link over the Snowy Range toward Encampment and Baggs. For anyone heading west for work, recreation or hauling, the opening put one of south-central Wyoming’s highest paved routes back in service after nearly five months of winter closure.

WYDOT crews from Saratoga and Baggs spent the middle of April cutting through deep drifts with rotary plows and other heavy equipment before the road could open. The closed section runs from mile markers 27 to 50, and the pass tops out at 9,955 feet where the highway crosses the Continental Divide. WYDOT shut the route on December 5 because of strong winds, drifting and blowing snow, and heavy snow, conditions that make plowing this stretch impractical once winter settles in.

The reopening came earlier than WYDOT’s usual target. The agency typically aims to open the route in the first week of June, but Battle Pass has been returning to service in late May or even earlier in recent years. It opened on May 23 in 2024, May 25 in 2023 and 2022, May 20 in 2021, May 21 in 2020 and June 3 in 2019. By comparison, the December closure dates also show how quickly the pass can go down, with winter shutdowns hitting November 14 in 2020, December 10 in 2021, November 29 in 2022, December 4 in 2023 and November 27 in 2024.

The road is back, but spring at elevation still carries risk. WYDOT supervisor Marty Mayfield warned that melting snow can refreeze overnight and leave isolated slick spots on the pavement. Crews may also return in the coming weeks to fix guardrails or signposts damaged over the winter, a reminder that the season opening does not mean the mountain weather has stabilized.

Battle Pass is also a tourism corridor, not just a seasonal road. Wyoming tourism materials describe it as a 57-mile paved highway over the Sierra Madre Mountains between Encampment and Baggs, and state byways officials say the route is meant to support tourism while preserving scenic, historic and cultural resources. Tourism material says the pass name traces to an 1841 battle between Indians and fur trappers, adding another layer of history to a road that now carries summer travelers, local business traffic and Albany County drivers back into the high country.