Driving west towards Mount Robson on Highway 16, you could encounter delays along the way.

In an effort to stop rock slides, Parks Canada have contractors removing unstable overhanging rock from Highway 16 west of Jasper.

As the funding for the project comes from the Mountain Park Fund. Marion Lee, the highway manager for Jasper National Park, said it’s a cyclical operation that happens every few years.

An engineering firm, hired by Parks, evaluates the stability of the rock which is affected by the weather each year.

Lee explained “the stability of the rock can change. The biggest affect on rock is the freeze/thaw cycle in the spring or the fall - where water gets into the cracks and freezes and expands and can cause instability.”

Depending on the issue with the rock face, the contractors will either trim, blast or bolt the rock - with trimming and blasting the more common solution.

When trimming the rock, the contractors scale the rock face and use a pry bar or air hammer to break pieces off by hand, Lee said, while blasting they drill holes into the rock face and place explosives into the holes.

The less common solution is to bolt the rock. Bolts of up to six metres long are used to bolt one rock into another.