Route 89 Closed 20 miles south of Page, Arizona

 
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Drivesmart 66, Nuvi 2595LMT (Died), Nuvi 1490T (Died), Nuvi 260 (Died), GPSMAP 195

Wow!

http://www.azdot.gov/CCPartnerships/News/NRel3399.asp

Looks like Thor and the Hulk got in a disagreement. Or perhaps an alien spaceship is trying to make it's way out of the center of the earth. It is Arizona...

~Angela

I have driven that road when on my way to Lake Powell

Wow, I have driven that road when on my way to Lake Powell. That is crazy and would have been some terrifying surprise to anyone on the road when it happened.

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Garmin Drive Smart 55 - Samsung Note 10 Smartphone with Google Maps & HERE Apps

been down that

road myself several times, planning on going to phoenix in may, looks like it will be 89a for that trip

Whew!

Thank goodness I'm returning from Florida by auto to Flag from the east via I-40 tomorrow.

That'll be quite a detour for folks who will now need to drive past Antelope Canyon, the power plants and over to Tuba City for quite some time, I expect.

I gather that before I can pull my car into the garage tomorrow, I'll have a foot of snow to shovel sad

And for any folks planning to drive I-40 through NM soon and who use MrKenFL's Rest Areas Combined, look for the next update. I've sent several revisions to him.

The

The detour driving north on 89 from Flagstaff is onto 160, toward Tuba City, all the way past Cow Springs and then north on 98 which will connect to 89 again just south of Page.

The local Phoenix TV stations are saying that this detour will add 45 miles to the trip from Flagstaff to Page or about an hour, on those roads.

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Nuvi 350, 760, 1695LM, 3790LMT, 2460LMT, 3597LMTHD, DriveLuxe 50LMTHD, DriveSmart 61, Garmin Drive 52, Garmin Backup Camera 40 and TomTom XXL540s.

Cause of Road Damage

I've driven that road several times in the past few years. It's a lonely stretch of road and the detour towards Tuba City is not particularly scenic - or populated either.

They don't identify the cause of the damage. Perhaps its the spiders from Eight Legged Freaks... which was filmed in that area smile

They

They now think it was caused by some kind of systemic event but are not totally sure. As of last night the road has continued to drop a bit further. It's going to be awhile before we drive up 89 again.

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Nuvi 350, 760, 1695LM, 3790LMT, 2460LMT, 3597LMTHD, DriveLuxe 50LMTHD, DriveSmart 61, Garmin Drive 52, Garmin Backup Camera 40 and TomTom XXL540s.

A lot of work and closed for a year

Sounds like this landslide will take a lot of work to repair.

Here's a new video news story about the road closure, the detour and why it'll probably take a year to complete all of it.

http://www.kutv.com/news/top-stories/stories/vid_3975.shtml

The active geology in the region is amazing.

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Drivesmart 66, Nuvi 2595LMT (Died), Nuvi 1490T (Died), Nuvi 260 (Died), GPSMAP 195

Do Not Try To Go 89.

Sightseers are causing problems according to TV. tonight. Ground slippage was the apparent cause and may occur again according to news here in PHX.

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NUVI 660, Late 2012 iMac, Macbook 2.1 Fall 2008, iPhone6 , Nuvi 3790, iPad2

8 months

geochapman wrote:

Sightseers are causing problems according to TV. tonight. Ground slippage was the apparent cause and may occur again according to news here in PHX.

It's looks like there will be an 8-month closure with the long paved detour for through traffic and a shorter dirt road option for local traffic:

http://azdailysun.com/news/local/shelly-highway-closed-for-m...

Closure website

AZ DOT has put up a page for information about the road closure and progress on the repair.

http://www.azdot.gov/us89/

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Drivesmart 66, Nuvi 2595LMT (Died), Nuvi 1490T (Died), Nuvi 260 (Died), GPSMAP 195

News

rocknicehunter wrote:

AZ DOT has put up a page for information about the road closure and progress on the repair.

http://www.azdot.gov/us89/

The link now has three videos and many images.

Use To Drive It..

I use to drive it several times a week when I lived in Kanab. One of the biggest things one had to look out for back then was the male Native population on Friday nights who sometimes tended to sleep along the side of the road trying to keep warm after having partaking in a bottle or two of the amber liquid.

Nuvi1300WTGPS

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I'm not really lost.... just temporarily misplaced!

The Navajo 20 option

Some day, I want to travel this, but I think I'll wait until SR89 reopens.

http://azdailysun.com/news/local/rough-road-ahead-navajo-rou...

I saw that,

but you beat me to the post CraigW.
I'm currently debating on the route of our May trip to the area now that 89 is closed...

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Drivesmart 66, Nuvi 2595LMT (Died), Nuvi 1490T (Died), Nuvi 260 (Died), GPSMAP 195

Yup

rocknicehunter wrote:

but you beat me to the post CraigW.
I'm currently debating on the route of our May trip to the area now that 89 is closed...

The photo in the link shows a road that looks better than the road to The Grand Falls of the Little Colorado off of Leupp Rd or FR418 north of The Peaks connecting 89 to 180 so I will have to drive N20 some day when I have the time.

There are now two comments to the newspaper link and one suggests yet another possible detour route.

Update

http://azdailysun.com/news/local/shorter-hwy-detour-planned/...

The link above tells of plans to have Navajo 20 paved this summer as a shorter detour around the 89 closure area.

To me, this suggests that the fix for 89 is not going to be completed anytime soon. Since research into the road failure continues, there is no projected date for reopening 89 being discussed.

Can't mess with mother

Can't mess with mother nature.

Pretty big failure indeed.

From what I've seen (from AZDOT), one of the concerns is that essentially the hill/mesa the road was on literally has cracked down to the bedrock (essentially a mini-fault has formed--rather more serious than the usual ground slide) and there is some real question re stability--whether they'll be able to rebuild at all on the original routing or whether a re-routing will be a necessary evil.

Navajo 20 Paving update

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Drivesmart 66, Nuvi 2595LMT (Died), Nuvi 1490T (Died), Nuvi 260 (Died), GPSMAP 195

I'll Be There Next Week

Going to the Grand Canyon next week, will be driving by the affected section. Curious to see what it looks like.

The affected section is near where 89 and 89A meet at Bitter Springs.

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When you are dead, you don’t know that you are dead. It is only difficult for the others. It is the same when you are stupid.

N20 or 89T...and folks say Garmin is slow to adopt new roadways.

Here's a nice video of the detour being paved between The Gap and Page on Navajo 20 (Béésh Haagééd góó 'atiin):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Og4FjohVmvk

What's amazing about this is that this paved alternative to the rock slide on 89 north of Bitter Springs is that 89T is still under construction and not open to traffic, yet it's already built into Garmin's City Navigator NA NT 2014.20! And the closed SR 89 between Page and Bitter Springs has been removed from 2014.20. Major kudos to Garmin and their map suppliers!

89T is due to open to the public in "late August 2013" which is now so it may be opening very soon. I'll report as soon as I hear that it's open--and will likely drive it as well.

Until then, there's the video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1-pRO8doR1Y

Google Earth

The damaged section is visible on Google Earth and appears that they placed some pavement around the bad section, probably not for public passage but for access to the failure area.

-111.632439, 36.653253

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"There's no substitute for local knowledge" nüvi 750, nüvi 3597

The "It's Open!" thread

No restrictions!

Reopening

US 89 south of Page is to be reopened to traffic on March 27.

Garmin map updates were amazingly prompt at noting the closure when it occurred so I expect that at least for Garmin maps, the 2016.1 update expected out this summer should show it open again. This will be good news for vacationers planning a trip from the North Rim of the Grand Canyon to Lake Powell.

It'll be interesting to see if US 89T remains open after 89 reopens.