There’s good news and bad news concerning Highway 299. The road to the coast has been closed at Big French Creek in Trinity County since December 12th when a mountainside suddenly dumped around 100,000 cubic yards of rock and dirt onto the highway at a slide that has been causing closures for years. With another 200,000 cubic yards poised to surrender to gravity at any time, Cal-Trans and Steve Manning Construction will soon start on a permanent solution: knocking down the remaining hillside and using the material for a new roadway. Completion is expected in early Summer. First a single track detour is being built closer to the Trinity River with a 10 foot embankment to protect it. One-way traffic control was supposed to have started in mid-January, but weather continues to be a problem. Now Cal-Trans is opening a detour to one-way traffic control for 3 hours a day: 6:30 to 8AM and 4:30 to 6PM. However, that opening is only offered for local Trinity County residents.