Glacier Park Rockslide Kills Vacationer Near Logan Pass

A vacation in Glacier National Park turned deadly Sunday when a rockslide killed a motorist and injured a passenger on Going-to-the-Sun Road, Chief Ranger Steve Frye reported.

The rockslide covered 100 to 150 feet of the road near Logan Pass about 9:30 a.m., and the outer edge of the rock mass caught the couple’s rental car, Frye said.

The man’s body was trapped in the car for more than three hours, but the woman was freed quickly and received only minor injuries, he said.

Witnesses said a small fire that broke out in the car was quickly extinguished.

The 30-year-old victim and his wife are Japanese citizens who live in Washington, D.C. Their names will not be released until their families are notified, Frye said.

No other vehicles were damaged and no one else was injured, he said.

Going-to-the-Sun, a winding, scenic highway and the only east-west road across the park, was blocked and closed to all traffic, Frye said.

“Rockfall along Going-to-the-Sun is not uncommon, (but) rockfall of this magnitude certainly is,” the ranger said.

The man was the second visitor killed by falling rock on the Going-to-the-Sun Road, park officials said.

Alice Leckie died June 28, 1962. A contractor was killed by falling rock on the road in 1931.

The slide occurred at a sheer rock wall in the vicinity of the rimrock, just west of Logan Pass, which is at the crest of the highway.

Frye said the cause of the rockslide was not known and probably could not be determined without extensive investigation.

MEMO: Cut in Spokane Edition