Pack some patience, top off the tank and queue up some podcasts, Highway 17 commuters: Those two modest lanes, one in each direction, will likely be the only way over the Santa Cruz Mountains this week and possibly beyond.

Caltrans officials said Sunday that, while they’ve been able to clear up more debris this weekend after a massive landslide Friday, they haven’t begun stabilizing the slipping hillside.

At least it won’t be raining to start the week. The Bay Area will get a couple of more days of dry weather before the next bout of rain arrives late Wednesday.

The rain will get increasingly heavy through Thursday before tapering off, said National Weather Service forecaster Bob Benjamin. Another round is expected to come in Friday and Saturday, followed by a break, then yet another storm.

“Looks like a pretty wet pattern into early next week,” he said. “It does look like there will be some periods of heavy rain, but a little more transitory — it’s not going to hang overhead and dump and dump.”

One of the hardest-hit arteries in the region over the past month has been Highway 17. Caltrans crews labored Saturday and Sunday to muck out debris at the site of the monster slide near Vine Hill Road that closed all lanes on Friday, but they haven’t been cleared to actually shore up the mountainside.

“Once we get the OK from Cal/OSHA to get the hill stabilized, we can get back to work on that,” said Caltrans spokeswoman Susana Cruz, adding that it’s not enough to simply move the mud out of the way. They’ve got to do construction on it to prevent more from sloughing off the hillside — especially with a forecast for more rain arriving Wednesday night.

“Right now, it doesn’t look like it will be open before then,” Cruz said. “It will take some time after we’re allowed to resume the work; our guys are working hard, and they’ll get it done as soon as they can, but the good news is there is a lane open in each direction.”

All lanes were closed Friday morning because the hillside was “still active” after a Thursday slide that came with a tragedy when one of the crew members working on the slide was killed and another injured when they were hit by a dump truck.

One southbound lane was opened on Friday, with a northbound lane opened Saturday morning.

It’s an understatement to say it’s been a hassle for commuters: The main artery between Santa Cruz County and Silicon Valley is used by 50,000 motorists a day and has been plagued with problems this season due to unrelenting, drought-busting downpours that have brought barrels of rain to the area this season. Witness the deep-mountain community of Ben Lomond, which has had nearly 57 inches of rain this season, compared to an average of about 28 inches.

“You’re going to see similar numbers all around up there,” said Bob Benjamin of the National Weather Service. “They’re seeing more than double the normal amount of rain.”

Other areas have been disrupted by the rains of 2017. Niles Canyon Road in Fremont, for example, has been closed by flooding multiple times since the start of the year.