B.C.'s Sea to Sky Highway to reopen Saturday night

The Sea to Sky Highway, the primary route between Vancouver and 2010 Olympic sites in Whistler that was closed following a rockslide, will reopen late Saturday night, officials say.

The road could be open by 11 p.m. PT, a day ahead of previous estimates, as a result of hard, round-the-clock work by crews, B.C. Transportation Minister Kevin Falcon said.

Workers were able to finish clearing away all the rubble that had been blocking the highway, he said.

A rock slide Tuesday night left up to 10,000 cubic metres of rock and debris on a section of Highway 99 between Lions Bay and Furry Creek south, with initial estimates suggesting it would be shut down until Monday or longer.

Falcon said no one should worry about travelling that portion of the highway.

"We feel very good about the safety. The blasting went extraordinarily well and in fact we've now got a safer situation," Falcon told reporters. "The only good thing that comes out of this is that we've actually got a better situation than we had before because the most dangerous part of that rock face had fallen off."

"So I actually think we will end with up with a better more secure area through  that part."

The only alternate route is a seven- or eight-hour drive up through the Interior that includes the Duffy Lake Road, which is badly in need of repair, Lillooet Mayor Christ'l Roshard said Thursday.

She said the stretch of the Duffy Lake Road, the only route in and out of Squamish, Whistler and Pemberton, hasn't been upgraded since it was paved 17 years ago.

Roshard has been lobbying the provincial government to repair the road since B.C. won the right to host the 2010 Olympics, and she's hoping this week's closure of the Sea to Sky Highway will convince the government that it's time to upgrade the road.