When the Monte Cristo gates close and open.

UDOT closes SR-39 over Monte Cristo every winter between milepost 37, near Ant Flat Road east of Huntsville, and milepost 56 near Woodruff, typically from late November through May. The recent dates: closed at noon on November 27, 2024; open by 8 am on May 16, 2025; open May 4, 2026. This fall's closing date will show up on UDOT's Ogden Valley site and in the local news the week before.

A guide to Monte Cristo · Checked September 29, 2026 · 2 min read · The Fresh Tracks crew

A closed gate on a snowed-in road through the pines

The closure

SR-39 runs east from Huntsville past Causey and climbs over Monte Cristo to Woodruff in Rich County. Every winter UDOT closes the high part between milepost 37, near Ant Flat Road, and milepost 56, near Woodruff. UDOT's own description of the season is late November through May, and its statewide seasonal roads list says November through May or June, depending on the weather. The gates are UDOT's, the dates move with the snow, and the road opens when the plows and the snowpack say so, not on a fixed day.

The road

SR-39 is the Ogden River and Monte Cristo Scenic Byway on UDOT's map: 60 miles from Ogden to Woodruff, 44 of them the official byway. From Ogden it climbs Ogden Canyon, skirts Pineview, follows the South Fork past the campgrounds and Causey, and then does the real climbing to the top. Two rules ride along with it. Vehicles longer than 50 feet are not permitted in Ogden Canyon between the canyon mouth and Pineview Dam, so a long trailer headed for the top goes around by I-84 and Trappers Loop. And the traction law applies when UDOT calls it, which is what the storms before the gate closes bring.

The dates we have

2024: UDOT announced the closure for noon on Wednesday, November 27, and said the road may reopen in May but could stay closed longer.
2025: UDOT's release of May 13 had Monte Cristo open by 8 am on Friday, May 16, with several other big mountain passes opening the same week.
2026: UDOT's Ogden Valley page lists May 4 as the opening date.

So the pattern is a closing right around Thanksgiving and an opening in the first half of May, later after a big winter. If you're planning a trip over the top, that's your window; if you're planning to snowmobile, the closure is the season.

While it's closed

To get from Ogden Valley to Woodruff and Bear Lake in winter, UDOT's alternates are US-89 through Logan Canyon, or SR-16 and Wyoming 89 by way of I-80 and I-84. Both are long; neither is a shortcut. The camera at milepost 36.84 shows the gate area, and a second one at milepost 46.2 shows the top; the Monte Cristo hub on this site links both, along with the SNOTEL station at 8,930 feet that reads the snow depth up there.

What this does to your vehicle.

The road up from Causey is paved and mostly open ground, so summer is about dust from the gravel pullouts and bugs on the front end. The shoulder seasons are the ones that leave a mark: the last weeks before the gate closes and the first after it opens, the road is wet, sanded and salted, the pullouts are mud, and the truck comes home with grit packed into the wheel wells and a brown line at the rocker panels. Rinse the underbody after a shoulder-season trip; that's when the salt sits longest.

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