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cruiserjs's avatar
cruiserjs
Explorer
Feb 17, 2016

Colorado Interstate 70

I 70 west of Denver was recently closed by a massive rock slide in Glenwood Canyon. Today's word is that it may open sometime on Thursday. The detour will take you to US40 and Syteamboat Springs - aboyt 140+ miles before rejoining I 70.
  • We went through there Monday morning and the rocks from the first fall were still on the roadway (they'd cleared one lane each direction). One rock was the size of a full-sized van and had hit the west bound lanes, taken out the guardrail, and fallen down onto the eastbound lanes. Coming back Monday night, we missed the second rockfall by a few hours. Whew. This is the worst rock fall in the last several years, since a rock punched a hole through the west bound lanes. Took months to fix that. In this case, rocks hit both directions, so they've got a lot of repairs to complete just to get one lane open in each direction. Word is they hope to have one lane open this afternoon or more likely tomorrow. A pilot car will lead a procession through. So the traffic on a four lane interstate will all be down to one lane, with alternating traffic for both directions.

    I have met several people over the last couple of days who were over here skiing and had to return to Denver to fly home. It's a long detour but I guess at least it's different scenery for many.
  • They had another slide last night that caused a power outage in No Name (along the canyon by Glenwood Spgs).

    As of Thurs. eve, they're saying Sat at the earliest. I live in Glenwood, and the motels have been full. It's raining pretty good right now (Thurs eve) and that will bring down more rocks. Have seen rockfall on a couple of roads near town (not the freeway). so things are moving.
  • Not local, and the local guys would know the up-to-date info, but news reports this morning over here east of the Divide stated that high winds on Thursday (along with the rain previously reported) made it impossible to get some needed equipment to the area above the slide to help stabilise the rocks. Same reports, with CDOT as quoted, stated they were attempting to get one lane open, but that it could be up to a month before all the repairs were made and I-70 completely reopened.