Fixing potholes and washouts is routine for New Hampshire road crews every spring. Operations get significantly trickier when of is near the summit of the state’s highest peak.

Three-plus inches of heavy rain and sleet combined with melting snow tore through a section of the 7.6-mile Mount Washington Auto Road on Monday, making the route impassable near the six-mile mark.

Repairs began Monday but since this is Mount Washington, work was soon slowed by some early May snow. Fourteen inches of it, to be exact.

“Visibility isn’t very good,” said Meghan Moody-Schwartz, brand and marketing manager for the iconic roadway, when explaining why recent photos of the repairs weren’t available Wednesday.

Photos from Tuesday showed crews in bucket loaders with chains on their tires trying to fill in the holes in near-blizzard conditions.

Moody-Schwartz said crews are still evaluating the extent of damage, which happened to a couple of sections of the road 1½ miles below the summit near a pull-off area where drivers headed down can rest their overheated brakes. Water from melting snow and 3 inches of rain Monday overloaded a culvert and carved several ditches across the road. It’s not yet clear how long the road to the summit will be shut.

“We’re still getting all the resources up the road,” she said. “Yesterday, everyone came in pretty soggy at the end of their day.”

The Mount Washington Observatory on the 6,288-foot summit, which is staffed all year round, reported that its shift change took place Wednesday via the Cog Railway, since their usual route was blocked as the Auto Road remained closed for repairs at the six-mile mark after the weekend storm..

This weekend’s Spring Adventure Tours, in which visitors are carried up the Auto Road in vans, are still taking place because they turn around below the damage, at the area known as Cragway Drift where the deepest amount of snow usually collects.

The road is still scheduled to open May 13 for self-driving to the summit on weekends, and on every day beginning Memorial Day weekend.

The Auto Road to the top of the 6,288-foot mountain was first opened in 1861, although it was only completely paved this century. More than 45,000 cars take the trip to the summit each year.

For more information on the road condition, check the website at mt-washington.com.

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