Repairs on the road to the 14,266-foot summit of Mount Blue Sky are proceeding on schedule, according to the company that is doing the work, and North America’s highest paved highway is expected to reopen next spring on or around Memorial Day, its traditional seasonal reopening.

Repair work began last fall after the road’s traditional Labor Day closure on a 0.7-mile section at 13,000 feet near Summit Lake. Crews were able to work into early November before the project had to be halted for winter. They removed old asphalt, improved the soil layer beneath the asphalt, moved and replaced culverts, improved drainage, completed a base layer on the road, installed headwalls and began rock embankment work.

Finishing the project required keeping the road closed this summer from Echo Lake to the summit, officials said. Construction resumed just this week.

“Siete Inc., the contractor on this project, is really confident that moving into this (construction) season, we will complete the work that we have lined out in our schedule,” said Tracy Trulove, the public information manager on the project. “There was so much good work accomplished in the fall, we don’t believe this would go past the intended timeframe, meaning the work would be finished before the winter shutdown.”

Read more from John Meyer at DenverPost.com.