Known officially as Federal Highway 68, the new 26-ft. two lane highway which will join the upper Santa Ana river Canyon to the east end of Big Bear Valley is programming rapidly, with completion scheduled for some time around Christmas of this year.
Carefully engineered so that the maximum grade is six percent and the sharpest curve has a 200-ft. radius, the new limited access highway is being constructed by the J.E. Haddock Construction Co. of Pasadena across U.S. Forest Service land, financed by a special appropriation by Congress and administered through the Dept. of Commerce and the Bureau of Public Roads. After its constructions it will be turned over to the State of California to become one in the link of great State Highways.
The 400-ft. right-of-way which borders the road will permit widening of the highway at some possible future date, and also guarantees freedom of the scenic 16-mile stretch from encroachment by billboards and other unsightly objects.
By virtue of its location along the southeast of the mountain range, the new highway will benefit from the desert influence, hence will not be subject to heavy snows. One of the highest highways in California, it rises from 5400 ft. on the Barton Flats end to an elevation of 8442 ft. at one point and travels some of the most beautiful territory in Southern California, opening to view Onyx Peak, San Gorgonio Peak, and Santa Ana Canyon. The summit, named Onyx Summit by Big Bear District Ranger Earl Nichols and soon to appear under that name on the new Forest Service maps, will be the site of a Forest Service fire station in order to protect the area from increased use due to the fact that, as Onyx Peak is highly mineralized, this area is in a high lightning concentration area.
While the highway is often referred to as the Cienega Seca Highway, it is not officially so named. As it follows Arrastre Creek on this side of the range just as it follows the Cienega Seca stream and meadow on the Santa Ana Canyon side, links Barton flats with Bear Valley and passes near Sugarloaf Mtn. A number of different names may be considered for future official designation of the highway, it was pointed out to the Big Bear Life by ranger Earl Nichols.
Work is proceeding in both directions, with a crew of fifty men working on the Bear Valley side and twenty now working on the far side. Haddock’s contract calls for 200 calendar days of work on this end and 210 days on the Barton Flats side, since official start of the work on July 14 here. The terrain, exceedingly rough in some places, calls for a great amount of heavy equipment, air traffic drills, jackhammers, monster caterpillars, and scrapers. The only structure of any consequence is the 8 ft. by 5 ft. culvert being constructed on the far side.
