“One of the things that 

you really dread as a 

project engineer is having 

an accident on your 

project,” Gary Hunter 

reflected as he recounted 

a couple of incidents that 

occurred on the Chinook 

Pass project. “We had our 

project office down in 

Cliffdell, which was quite 

a ways” down Mather 

Memorial Parkway 

(Highway 410) toward 

Natches. “The office was 

in a little trailer right 

next to the highway. . . . 

One day I was sitting in 

the office doing some 

work and I heard some 

sirens go by.” Whenever 

that happens, he said, “it 

just really makes you 

wonder. Did something 

happen on my project. . . 

Did a tourist come by and 

have an accident there? 

Was there an accident 

involving some of the 

crew members on the 

project?” 

Chinook Pass (National Park 

Highway) 1994-95, Part II 

Compiled from 

Interviews, June 2013 

From accidents on the 

project to unsatisfactory 

work by the contractor – 

it’s all part of the job for 

the Project Engineer. 

All photos provided by 

Gary Hunter. 

Western 

Federal Lands 

Highway 

Division 

A Glimpse into 

an Earlier Era 

Article 50 

April 2014 

concrete work. “It 

was a windy, gusty 

day, and the winds 

caught the form 

(as) the crane was 

lifting (it), and 

swung it aside. It 

was like a sail. 

That threw the 

crane off balance 

and it toppled 

over.” 

The crane fell on 

top of a laborer and 

crushed his legs. 

“The last I heard, 

he would probably 

never recover the 

use of his legs.” 

When Accidents Occur 

That day he heard the 

sirens pass the office, 

“and of course I had that 

dreadful feeling that 

maybe something had 

happened.” 

The project included a lot 

of concrete guardwall 

simulating original stone 

walls that had been built 

in the 1930’s by the 

Civilian Conservation 

Corps. “I drove on up 

there, and sure enough,” 

there had been an 

accident involving one of 

the cranes that had been 

setting forms for the 

During a stormy day in the 

summer of 1994, a strong 

gust of wind catches the 

heavy concrete form being 

lifted by this boom truck, 

toppling the truck. A laborer is seriously injured. 
Another accident occurred at the 

turnout at the summit. Late one night, 

a couple of guys were driving from the 

Seattle area after an evening of 

drinking. “They got up to Chinook Pass 

and the turnout at the top of our 

project. It was probably about 4:00 in 

the morning,” Gary said. 

The turnout provides a spectacular 

view from atop a 125-foot cliff. One 

guy got out of the car to answer 

nature’s call, and he got too close to the 

edge. “He lost his balance – he was 

very drunk – and he fell that 125 feet 

straight down.” 

Page 2 Chinook Pass (National Park Highway) 1994-95, Part II 

Simulated Stone Masonry Walls 

The project 

crew 

discovered 

him a couple 

of hours 

later when 

they arrived 

on the job, “and they climbed 

down to him and gave him first 

aid,” Gary said. “Bob Toops 

had EMT training and was the 

first person to reach the injured 

man. . . .He was broken up 

pretty badly. . . . They had to 

call in a rescue helicopter and 

airlift him out..” 

An injured man is placed on a litter airlifted out after 

falling from the Chinook Pass Overlook during the 

summer of 1994. 

“There was a big drop off below the 

highway,” Gary said, and protective 

walls were built along the edge. 

“These concrete guard walls ... were 

made to look like stone walls.” 

Jim Conquest, who also worked on 

the project, described that process. 

“They had to make these form molds 

from existing stone” to replicate the 

We were bringing in ten 

or twelve concrete trucks 

every day from the 

supplier in Yakima. 

A View to the Fall 

placed inside the plywood forms and 

“when it came out, it looked like the 

stone masonry design. . . . 

“Then they’d color it (with) a concrete 

stain” to match the various hues of 

the natural stone, Jim said, “to make 

it look like the stuff they were 

replacing.” 

This concrete work posed some 

problems for the contractor. 

“Constructing these concrete guard 

walls required a substantial amount 

of concrete,” Gary said. “We were 

bringing in10-12 trucks every day. 

The supplier was based in Yakima, 

90 miles away. His plan had been to 

batch the mud in Yakima, mix it on 

the road to the project, and then pour 

it right away. 

existing stone walls. “They’d make 

sheets of this stuff in a repeating 

panel in a certain length and then 

they’d use that as a form liner inside 

the concrete forms.” The concrete was 

Center: Laborers drill holes in the top of existing retaining walls where vertical rebar will be epoxied into the holes. Left: Forms for the guardwall are installed on top of the retaining wall. Right: The guardwall after the forms have been removed. After final curing, the concrete will 

be stained to emulate the colors of stone. 
That solved that problem, but it didn’t 

solve all the contractor’s problems. 

“Concrete needs to be 

kept moist for 30 days 

in order to cure 

properly,” and to keep 

it from cracking and 

spalling, Gary pointed 

out. “The contractor 

didn’t do that; he didn’t 

keep (the walls) moist 

enough after they were 

done.” 

Gary said he had hoped 

to rectify the situation 

right away, but “I 

didn’t get the support I 

wanted. . . ” It wasn’t 

until the work was 

completed – about 

“Concrete that is mixed 

on the road this way 

must be used within the 

first 60 to 90 minutes, 

so getting a batch from 

Yakima over 90 miles of 

road to the project was a 

real problem.” 

Gary said the supplier 

tried adding a retardant 

to the mixture to make 

it last 2 to 3 hours. “He 

experimented with the 

mix ratios by putting 

the mix in the trucks 

and having them driven 

around Yakima for 2-3 

hours, trying to simulate 

the trip to the project, 

but they could never get the mix 

exactly right. 

“In the end, they put a cement silo on 

the project. That way they could put 

the sand and aggregate and water into 

the trucks in Yakima, send them up to 

the project, and add the cement at the 

project. By doing this, it sat in the 

mixer for only 15-20 minutes.” 

Article 50 Page 3 

They went back in and rejected all of 

the walls. . . They brought in experts 

to do some core 

drilling of the concrete 

walls, and then they 

had a big conference 

in Vancouver with the 

contractor to determine what was to be 

done about it. 

“It was determined 

that the walls would 

not be durable 

enough, that they 

weren’t completed 

according to the 

specifications, so it 

ended up that the 

contractor gave the 

FHWA a cash settlement.” 

They could never get the 

mix exactly right. In the 

end, they put a cement 

silo on the project. 

$750,000 worth – that “the Vancouver office realized the mistake. 

Forms remain in place at the left until the concrete achieves its initial set. At right, 

forms have been removed from an earlier pour. The insides of the forms are textured to give the concrete guardwall an appearance of stonework. 

A truck delivers concrete to the guardwall forms. Sixty 

linear feet of forms are filled at a time. 

Improperly Cured Concrete 

A portable batch plan erected on the project adds cement to a truck. Trucks left the 

supplier in Yakima loaded with sand, water, 

and gravel. 
Gary Hunter’ would return to Mather Memorial 

Parkway for another project in 1998. His 

experiences on Cayuse Pass will be recounted in 

an upcoming article. 

Stories in this series have been developed by 

Marili Reilly from interviews and 

correspondence. Retirees who would like to share 

A Glimpse into an Earlier Era their memories may email marili.reilly@dot.gov. 

610 East Fifth Street 

Vancouver, Washington 98661 

http://www.wfl.fhwa.dot.gov/about/history/

articles.htm 

Western Federal 

Lands Highway 

Division 

Snow Delays Project Completion 

(but) it finally got too cold and the 

ground was frozen.” 

Snowplows came through and they 

pushed big berms of snow to the sides 

of the road “where the guardrail had to 

go, so we finally had to just shut her 

down and finish the guardrail the next 

spring.” 

Jim didn’t return to the project when 

spring 1995 rolled around, but he 

wasn’t sorry to leave the job that 

winter. “I was 

living in a fifth 

wheel trailer down 

in the trailer park, 

down by Natches,” 

and some of the 

contractor’s crew 

were also living 

there, he said. “It 

was pretty miserable there in the RV 

Park when it was so 

cold and snowing 

and freezing.” 

The Chinook Pass project was begun in 

1994, and most of the work was 

completed that year. “I was over there 

at the tail end,” Jim said. “One of the 

last things you do is the steel guardrail, 

and that was down at the lower end of 

the job on the east side toward 

Natches.” 

They were trying to finish it when the 

first winter snows started. “We tried to 

push on and we tried to work around it, 

Laborers use a vibrator to consolidate the 

fluid concrete. This eliminates air bubbles 

and ensures sand and gravel are distributed 

The final guardwall, after staining. evenly.