By Doug Nintzel / ADOT Communications

Less than 48 hours after flooding washed out a section of US 89 between Flagstaff and Page, I watched the first vehicle use a roadway restored through nonstop effort by ADOT personnel. As I had at other stages of this fast-moving project, where I worked with news media visiting the site, I snapped a photo for use on ADOT's social media accounts.

Between late Wednesday, when the washout occurred just north of Cameron, and Friday night when traffic was restored, I took photos and videos as dozens of ADOT employees worked urgently to reopen a highway critical to residents, tourists and trade in northern Arizona.

While they labored, traffic to and from Page and other points north of Flagstaff was using a detour route that added 125 miles to the trip. For residents of the immediate area within the Navajo Nation, losing direct access between Cameron and Tuba City was a tremendous hardship.

ADOT crews are filling in one section of the washed-out US 89 between Flagstaff and Page.

— Arizona DOT (@ArizonaDOT) October 5, 2018

The damage occurred when floodwater undermined the earth next to a concrete box culvert used to carry runoff beneath the highway. On Thursday, crews cleared the damaged pavement and, using excavating equipment, removed additional soil to make room for new base material that would support the repaired roadway.

NOW: Crews are hard at work repairing the storm damage that closed US 89 north of Flagstaff between mileposts 467 and 481. pic.twitter.com/fBLiOy0FGJ

— Arizona DOT (@ArizonaDOT) October 4, 2018

The assembled ADOT crews, some from as far away as Williams and Payson, worked hour after hour. Large dump trucks delivered the aggregate base from Gray Mountain. Drivers in front loaders scooped up that material and dumped it in the gap, allowing operators of additional equipment, including a larger excavator, handheld compactors (the jackhammer-like device showed in one of the tweets embedded above) and a pavement roller, to build a new subgrade.

ADOT crews fill in a 30-foot section of US 89 washed away by flood waters. A multi-day closure is expected midway between Flagstaff and Page. We'll update the public as soon as it reopens. #aztraffic pic.twitter.com/f76o2VN1gS

— Arizona DOT (@ArizonaDOT) October 5, 2018

That process required time, as the workers built a new foundation layer by layer, but the results were quite noticeable as day turned into Thursday night. That's when our engineers decided to also replace the subgrade on the other side of the box culvert because it showed signs of distress. It meant more digging and dirt removal on Friday, followed by filling with new aggregate base material, as a way to shore up more of the subgrade beneath the highway.

This excavation, backfill, and compacting work advanced on Friday, leading to optimism that US 89 could be reopened less than 48 hours after the damage.

NOW: Here's another peek at the progress on US 89. The highway remains closed north of Flagstaff. MORE: https://t.co/Uh8lNFq2QN pic.twitter.com/sUyK1hWKOZ

— Arizona DOT (@ArizonaDOT) October 5, 2018

Crews began to ready the area for the asphalt paving that would restore the driving surface. A distributor truck put down a layer of asphalt tack. Dump trucks carrying hot asphalt arrived on the scene. Front loaders carried the asphalt to the paving machine. The paving was done in layers as well, followed by crews on the roller compacting the asphalt mix in one of the key final stages of the work.

Here's another step in paving a section of US 89 cut by flooding between Flagstaff and Page. We're working nonstop to complete temporary repairs and restore traffic on this vital northern Arizona highway. pic.twitter.com/VxC0VS7ah2

— Arizona DOT (@ArizonaDOT) October 6, 2018

As the sun began to set on day two of the repair mission, excess material was hauled away, a sweeper cleared dirt from the highway and temporary pavement markers were set in place within the repaired section.

The lights are on along US 89 between Flagstaff and Page, where we are working to repair a section washed out by flooding. Our efforts to reopen the highway continue nonstop. pic.twitter.com/nhrVznHugw

— Arizona DOT (@ArizonaDOT) October 6, 2018

Activity didn’t let up until just before the call was made to reopen the highway to traffic. It was just before 8:30 p.m. when the first vehicles traveled on the rebuilt area. ADOT personnel who had worked for two days with very little sleep had restored the primary route between Flagstaff and Page. A job well done.

US 89 is reopened and here's photographic proof! You can read more about the effort to reopen this stretch of highway in 48 hours at the link below. Reminder, continue to expect reduced speed limits in the area where the work was done. https://t.co/5N4wwgXv3Z pic.twitter.com/ffBolee01z

— Arizona DOT (@ArizonaDOT) October 6, 2018

By Peter Corbett / ADOT Communications

Arizona photographer James Cowlin went searching for landscapes to photograph a decade ago only to discover a passion for the terrain along US 89 looking through his windshield and viewfinder. Cowlin, 73, hit the road in 2007 to explore Route 89 from Mexico across Arizona all the way to the Canadian border.

He came home to Arizona with impressive images and became an advocate of the 2,000-mile highway, launching the US 89 Appreciation Society with a blog and website:

“It’s easy on the eyes,” he said of scenery along 89 that ranges from the Grand Canyon to Grand Tetons and five other national parks and a dozen national monuments.

National Geographic Traveler named US 89 one of its Top 10 Drivers’ Drives in the world in 2010. Cowlin and his wife Barbara, a painter, ventured on a handful of trips on 89, including a border to border to border journey over 32 days covering about 5,000 miles. They camped in a teardrop trailer.

“I love long road trips,” he said.

Cowlin has logged 25,000 miles on Route 89.

Home is now in Oracle, north of Tucson. Cowlin spent 35 years in Phoenix as a commercial photographer. The Cowlins live a few miles from State Route 77, previously designated as US 89.

Highway 89 is all over the map in Arizona.

There are five current sections of 89 with different highway designations – state, federal and alternate routes – SR 89, SR 89A, US 89, US 89A and SR 89S for a spur route. Interstate 19 replaced an original section of US 89 from the Mexican border at Nogales to Tucson.

“I call it the Main Street of Arizona,” Cowlin said of 89. “It connects all these towns across the state.”

US 89 was an early north-south route across Arizona in 1926 when a uniform highway numbering system was established. The Grand Canyon-Nogales Highway south of Tucson was US 380 and the road between Phoenix and Ash Fork was tagged US 280. Later they were renamed US 89 along with a new section from Flagstaff to Fredonia.

Long before interstates, 89 connected Nogales, Tucson, Florence, Mesa, Phoenix, Wickenburg, Congress, Yarnell, Prescott and Ash Fork. It then ran along Route 66 to Flagstaff before turning north to Cameron, Marble Canyon and Fredonia near the Utah border.

Arizona historian Marshall Trimble, who grew up in Ash Fork where 89 intersects with Route 66, recalled his first rough ride in a 1936 Ford on 89, also known then as the White Spar Highway to Prescott.

“Back then, Yarnell Hill was a real bucking bronco,” he said of the steep switchbacks up the Weaver Mountains. “Now it’s like a kid’s pony.”

SR 89 hasn’t changed much between Prescott and Ash Fork except for the road cut through Granite Dells north of Prescott is wider and Hell Canyon has been tamed, first with a 1954 bridge and new bridge last year. Plus, there’s far less traffic, Trimble said.

Interstate 17 and US 93 take much of the north-south traffic that formerly traveled on 89.

Cowlin said Route 89 allows for slower travel and sightseeing as an uncrowded two-lane highway that follows river valleys and the contours of the land.

“It’s kind of a natural road in that sense,” he said.

Cowlin said he discovered Route 89 while poring over maps looking for a landscape photo project to shoot and seeing a line of national parks stretching across the West from north to south.

“US 89 came to be by happenstance,” he said. “Nobody ever said let’s build a road from Glacier to Saguaro National Park. It just happened that way.”

The best time of year to travel the northern stretch of US 89 is mid- to late summer because some of the roads in Glacier National Park are snowbound well into June, Cowlin said.

“89 in Arizona and Utah you can do all year long, but spring or late fall are the best times.”

By Tom Herrmann / ADOT Communications

We’ve said it all along: Working for ADOT can be a real blast.

Widening, repairing or creating highways in Arizona can mean moving a lot of earth – sometimes through blasting. For example, it took 100,000 pounds of explosives to remove 125,000 cubic yards of dirt and rocks to widen US 60 between Oak Flat and Devils Canyon. You can see some of those explosives in use here:

Reopening US 89 after a landslide near Page required blasting as well. And ADOT's cameras where there to capture it:

Last week on SR 77 between Winkelman and Globe, as a crew blasted overhanging rock to reduce the risk of pieces falling onto the roadway below, an 18-foot-tall boulder fell 150 feet onto the highway surface. It took four hours longer than expected to reopen the highway because of the time required to break up this huge rock.

The image at right doesn't begin to do this rock justice, so click it if you want to see the boulder at full size.

Rocks often break at naturally occurring joints. Sometimes, those natural breaking spots are beneath the surface and provide us with a surprise. When crews set off explosive charges like this one, most of the rocks fall where we expect them to go. Sometimes, as on Nov. 30 near a place called Dripping Springs, they don’t.

Most of the time, they make great video. Enjoy.

By Caroline Carpenter / ADOT Communications

An ADOT project creating two new bridges over the Little Colorado River, a wider roadway, a modern roundabout at the junction with State Route 64 and four new underpasses is now complete on US 89 in Cameron, 50 miles north of Flagstaff. Check out the upgrades in the Flickr album above!

The $36.7 million project increases safety with a wider highway, raised median and new lighting, while pedestrians gain mobility with new sidewalks and underpasses.

All of the work on the two-year project has been documented on the ADOT Flickr page. Find additional details on the project in our news release. 

By Timothy Tait / ADOT Communications

The two women look out over the Little Colorado River, pointing into the distance, northward, at destinations yet to come on their journey of northern Arizona. They are standing next to the now iconic US 89 bridge at Cameron, its modern suspension design contrasted against the smooth cliffs, hiding the river below.

While the postcard wasn’t mailed, in neat cursive on the back, the traveler wrote of her adventure:

“Just across the street from where we ate, at Cameron, Ariz.”

The scene is documented on a picture postcard, perhaps from the 1940s, that came to me from a relative who hunts for antiques – in Michigan. Who the women are remains a mystery, their destination and journey concealed by time. How did a postcard of two women from the ‘40s documenting their visit to Arizona end up in Michigan before returning back to Arizona? Who snapped the photo? We’ll probably never know of their adventure or the path this postcard took before landing at ADOT. But it’s fun to wonder.

Bridge over Little Colorado River

Here’s what we do know: That iconic bridge, constructed in 1911, still stands today, carrying not traffic but utility lines over the Little Colorado River. While its usefulness as a traffic bridge has long ended, it continues serving Arizona faithfully. ADOT recently completed a new, wider bridge over the Little Colorado River, replacing a 1958 bridge that was built to accommodate construction traffic for the Glen Canyon Dam.

Historic Cameron Trading Post

Travelers today are still stopping at the historic Cameron Trading Post for a bite to eat and souvenirs before continuing their journey. And that new bridge at Cameron will serve traffic for decades to come, shuttling travelers across the gorge protecting the Little Colorado River on their way to … adventure.

By Caroline Carpenter / ADOT Communications

Today we’re taking you on a drive through Cameron on US 89 north of Flagstaff. The top half of this video takes you back to 2014, not long after ADOT started a $38 million improvement project. The bottom half shows the same route now that many of the upgrades are complete.

The project started with the removal and replacement of the US 89 Cameron Truss Bridge but expanded to include more than three miles of upgrades south of the bridge, which is near the State Route 64 junction about 50 miles north of Flagstaff.

As you can see, new features include two northbound lanes, two southbound lanes, a 16-foot wide raised median, sidewalks and a roundabout.

We’ve been documenting this project since it began. Below is a look at the latest photos, but the entire collection can be found on the ADOT Flickr page. The project should be complete by fall.

You’d think after 43 blog posts, 26 videos and hundreds of photographs, that we might be out of new things to say about the US 89 landslide repair project.

But we’re not!

Seven months after the road reopened to traffic, we have some more news to share...

The US 89 reconstruction project was honored recently by Engineering News-Record Southwest when the publication selected ADOT along with its contractors – FNF Construction for the construction work and AECOM for the design – for the 2015 Project of the Year in the highway/bridge category.

If you’ve been following along with us for the past couple of years, you know that after the February 2013 landslide forced the closure of US 89 south of Page, ADOT assembled a team of engineering experts to develop the long-term solution for restoring this vital route. The nine-month-long project, which started in July 2014 following extensive environmental and geotechnical work, removed about 1 million cubic yards of earth and rock to realign a 1,500-foot section of roadway and create a rock buttress to help stabilize the area.

You’ll also remember that while working on the long-term solution, ADOT paved Navajo Route 20, which was mostly a dirt and sandy road stretching from Bodaway-Gap to LeChee, to serve as the temporary US 89 route. This reduced the length of the original established detour route (US 160 and State Route 98) in half, and served as the short-term solution for motorists heading to and from Page until the US 89 reconstruction was finished.

More about the award

Engineering News Record is a construction and engineering publication that recognizes achievements in the industry. For nearly two decades, the publication has also been recognizing work done specifically in the southwest through a juried, regional Best Projects awards.

“This year, judges recognized the Arizona Department of Transportation and FNF Construction for the US 89 slide reconstruction with a Best Project award in the highway/bridge category,” ENR Southwest Regional Contributing Editor John Guzzon said. “Several factors drove the judges to select this project, including overcoming the geographic obstacles, build quality and speed-of-work. When a job includes 73 blasts, 47,000 loads, and hauling 1 million cubic yards of rock on narrow and steep haul roads in a slide area while recording zero OSHA reportable incidents, it makes judges sit up and take notice.”