The U.S. Forest Service hopes to plow through deep snow next week to open Bear Camp Road, a route through coastal mountains that serves rafters and hikers along the remote Wild Section of the Rogue River northwest of Grants Pass.

Tourists and regional travelers use the route, too, which serves as a scenic, backcountry link between Gold Beach and the Rogue Valley.

Hopes are that the route will be open as usual for the busy Memorial Day weekend, the traditional start of the summer recreation season, but as of Monday, 11 miles of the road was blocked by snow, according to an agency announcement. Snow reached 10 feet deep at the Bear Camp Overlook before more snow arrived last week.

Heavy snow this winter and spring has been good news after years of drought, but it’s so deep, a crew from the Umpqua National Forest is being called in to clear the road. Snowpack in southwest Oregon was 185% of normal as of this week, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

“We’re doing everything we possibly can to open Bear Camp Road in time for the Memorial Day holiday,” said Scott Blower, Wild Rivers District ranger for the Rogue River-Siskiyou National Forest.

That would be none too soon for rafters using the river and for hikers using the 40-mile Rogue River National Recreation Trail that parallels the waterway. Rafters and hikers typically travel downriver to Foster Bar near Agness and return via vehicle over Bear Camp Road. Shuttle companies typically drive them back from the Agness area or deliver their vehicles there so they can drive back themselves.

Shuttle operators are looking forward to the road opening because it shortens their trip between Galice on the east and Agness on the west to about two hours one way, compared with about five hours one way via a roundabout route using Highway 199 to the Oregon Coast.

“My fingers are crossed,” said Lynn Bennett, operator of BLT’s Rogue River Shuttles of Galice. “It’s the difference between a 10-hour day compared to a four-hour day.

“I’m just ready for the mountain to be open,” Bennett said.

Once it’s open, Bennett expects the plowed road to be something of a tunnel, flanked by walls of snow.

Blower, the district ranger, said the snow-removal crew will use a V-shaped plow capable of handling up to 10 feet of snow.

“It just lifts it up and throws it to one side,” he said.

The same crew has helped clear the road for the last several years. It usually is assigned to clear snow around Diamond Lake in the Cascade Mountains northeast of Medford.

Bear Camp Road is a mostly paved high-country route that begins at Galice as Galice Access Road (BLM Road 34-8-36) and ends near Agness and Foster Bar as Bear Camp Road (U.S. Forest Service Road 23). The road reaches an elevation of about 4,800 feet. Agness is located along the Rogue River, about 35 miles inland from Gold Beach, where river meets ocean.

In a related matter, a 20-person crew with the U.S. Bureau of Land Management is expected to arrive Wednesday at a 150-foot-wide landslide about halfway down the river trail, at mile 21.5, to build a trail around the slide, with work expected to be completed by this weekend, according to Beau Lee, superintendent of the work crew, Medford Crew 10.