8 Rescued From Colorado Avalanche

Cars Knocked Off Highway And Buried Near Berthoud Pass West Of Denver

(CBS/AP)  A huge avalanche knocked two cars off a mountain pass Saturday on the main highway to one of the state's largest ski areas, shortly after crowds headed through on the way to the lifts, authorities said.

The force of the avalanche pushed the cars about 300 feet off the road, reports Karlyn Tilley of CBS station KCNC.

Authorities say they think they've accounted for all the vehicles that were buried.

Eight people were rescued from the buried vehicles and all were taken to area hospitals, said state Patrolman Eric Wynn. None of the injuries appear to be serious, reports Tilley.

"Our crews said it was the largest they have ever seen. It took three paths," Stacey Stegman of the transportation department said of the massive slide near 11,307-foot Berthoud Pass, about 50 miles west of Denver on the way to Winter Park Resort.

Crews were probing the area for other vehicles, including any others that may have gone off the road, Stegman said.

The avalanche hit between 10 a.m. and 10:30 and was about 100 feet wide and 15 feet deep, Stegman said. The area usually has slides 2 to 3 feet deep because crews trigger them before more snow can accumulate, said Spencer Logan of the Colorado Avalanche Information Center.

Three snow storms in as many weeks have dumped more than 4 feet of snow on parts of Colorado and authorities have not had time to test all slide areas, Spencer said.

"This is a tremendous amount of snow to come down the mountain for us," Stegman said.

Mile Cikara, who was headed to Winter Park to ski, told KMGH-TV in Denver that he joined others furiously digging out victims. "I along with 30 other people grabbed shovels and started digging to get people out. I had a shovel but people were using their hands, skis, ski poles, whatever, to dig out," until rescue teams arrived, he said.

The timing meant most traffic headed to the ski area had already passed through.

"Good thing it didn't happen a couple of hours earlier," said Darcy Morse, a Winter Park spokeswoman. On an average January weekend day, the resort draws more than 10,000 skiers and snowboarders, with lifts opening at 8:30 or 9 a.m.

Wynn said the pass was closed and would not reopen until Sunday at the earliest.

Colorado has been digging out for the past three weeks after back-to-back blizzards and more snow falling Friday.

The Denver area was blanketed with up to 8 inches of snow Friday, while nearly a foot fell in the foothills west of the city before the storm moved into New Mexico.

Crews in Colorado have worked around the clock to clear roads so residents could get to stores for food and medicine.

Agriculture officials also were trying to determine how to deal with the carcasses of thousands of livestock that were killed in last week's blizzard or starved afterward.

[empire17]

You may have once seen or heard of a film of an avalanche shown on the Disney show. It was filmed in the fifties or sixties just a mile or two east of yesterday's avalanche. I remember seeing the clip as a young kid.

It was intentionally discharged from Red Mountain, on the south side of the highway, a very large slide area. I can't confirm accuracy, but in 1972 I got the following eyewitness account from a fellow named Dave who owned Dave's Texaco a mile or so west of the slide.

The road at that point is on the opposite side of the river from the slide zone. The river is a long ways below and well away from the road. It was assumed that the slide could NEVER reach the road. A cameraman and camera were set up on the road to film the avalanche. Once discharged, the avalanche grew larger than anyone imagined. The cameraman turned and ran up the road for his life. A young employee of Dave's (with a wife and two young kids) jumped into his truck and sped toward the cameraman to save him. They both died under 40 feet of snow.

My wife, who grew up here, said she thought it was a state plow operator who died in the rescue. Since many plow operators are seasonal employees, he could have been both.

[empire17]

We don't own a scanner, but a lot of our friends do. You're right in that they are very handy.

We did not see the slide coming. We just knew what had happened when we saw the types of emergency vehicles. We figured a slide had caught cars.

Back to CDOT, they have a big job. There are always huge cornices hanging around, and avalanche control is taken seriously. But again, this type of occurance is so rare and these conditions are always changing. Maybe someone could have guessed, but if the road was closed and no skiers got to the ski area, and nothing happened (which 999 times out of 1000 would have been the case), there would have been a lot of angry emails with a different twist.

Some folks did just dodge a bullet. I'll follow this with another entry about a bullet that didn't get dodged a long time ago.

[thgdriver]

Empire17

Looks like you answered my question while I was posting a post. Thanks for the info.

By the way are you allowed to own police/emergency/fire broadcast monitors in Colorado? Seems like something all should have next to a first aid kit there.

[thgdriver]

libsarenuts - your welcome.

ajackmack/ colorado56

I am wondering, I don't know what you two do for a living, it seems you two had the foresight to see this coming, what happened to C-DOT? Seems they are the professionals that dropped the ball and this could have been much worse As ajackmack states.

On the other hand, I guess they can not be everywhere, looks like a lot of folks dodged a bullet.

[empire17]

Where I sit at my home in Empire, about 6 miles below the avalanche, the winds are gusting to about 60 right now. I've been around here for 35 years. Most of the year you can see plumes of snow streaming from the ridges. If we closed the road every time we saw that we'd be closed most of the time, including in the summer.

An avalanche of this magnitude on our roads is a rarity, brought on by common events occuring in uncommon sequence. That makes predictions difficult.

Within minutes yesterday my wife and I saw 3 large plow trucks, 2 huge graders, 5 ambulances, and multiple fire and sheriff's vehicles storm up the hill. I shortly learned with a little effort that responders had been dispatched from 3 other counties as well. Alpine Rescue fortuitously had 20 people on the hill training who descended to the slide area to help. Rescuers with K9 teammates were dispatched from Loveland ski area. All in all it was a response that made me proud of our county personnel, our neighbors, the state patrol and CDOT.

Our county personnel were too busy to spend much time with the media. As a result most of the national media was grossly inaccurate on the subject, and much of what you heard in the first several hours was sensationalized and mistaken.

Around here stuff happens and we dig out of it. You're welcome to travel through when we're dug out. That will be most of the time since we need to get around.

[ajackmack]

From where I sit right now (in Fraser, Co.) I have a clear view of the Berthoud Pass area. On Saturday morning I watched as the the wind-bourne snow formed dense, lee-side plumes streaming off the peaks. Given these conditions, the avalanche in the Stanley Slide area was not surprising. Had the wind started blowing two hours earlier many more people would have been trapped by this event. The unfortunate eight should know that this could have been much worse.
My point: Given the predictable certainty of this avalanche in the Stanley Slide, why did C-Dot allow traffic to proceed into this hazard?

[colorado56]

thgdriver

Driving in the Rockies (or any mountain area) you have to be prepared for falling rocks in the spring from thaw, avalanches, wildlife in the road, ice. Except for the ice, there's not much you can do if you're in the wrong place at the wrong time. From what little I've been able to gather from local news, it sounds like it happened at the very bottom just after the first switchback. Bad wherever it happened but I wouldn't want to be higher up - it's a pretty stiff fall from higher up on that road.

Sounds like it was (still) very windy up there so it's possible there was natural cause. There's a lot of "backcountry" activity in this area but I've only seen it further east of this fall area. So if it was manmade, there might be some bodies higher up.

[libsarenuts]

Thanks thgdriver.I don't think mrvolleyba11 has ever experienced a snow storm in the Rockies. I lived in Fort Collins for several years and in spring 2003 a little storm dropped 31" outside my front door. My Dachshund did not understand. As far as the roads are concerned US 40 at the spot of the slide is 11,000 feet up. When it snows good luck keeping the road clear without an Avalanche.

[thgdriver]

colorado56

Your post makes more sense then most, seems this is just an unfortunate accident, Seems if you live there, as it looks, you do, this sort of thing is to be looked out for. So proceed at your own risk is in order, right?.

[thgdriver]

mrvolleyba11

Can you disagree with libsarenuts without the name calling? It lowers the dialog.

Thanks

Driver

[colorado56]

The Colorado Dept of Transportation does regular avalanche remediation. In the coming weeks, I'm sure there'll be information published which will explain why it happened. An interesting article about CDOT and avalanche removal is here:

http://www.dot.state.co.us/Communications/EmployeeNews/Archives/INSMay06web.pdf

This last storm ended just yesterday. It's possible that what looked OK the day before would not have been detected until this morning.

[METAUSTIN]

People are constantly being warned about global warming but that "chief scientist" in the Oval Office says there is no such thing. Maybe some one will listen now. Oh and don't forget that 41 square mile chunk of ice that just broke off in the Arctic Ocean (the size of 180,000 football fields).

[mrvolleyba11]

To libsarenuts, dangerous roads, this wasn't a small dirt path that hard core skier were driving through, this was a major US highway that is traveled by "regular" travelers and skiers! Your an idiot!!! This isn't people out in a hurricane surfing they are on cleared HIGHWAYS that are supposed to be safe. As far as warning sign that another blogger mention, what warning signs? ...lots of snow was the only "warning sign" and Colorado is always getting lots of snow without avalanches. Some people make uninformed comments without any idea of what they are even talking about!

[thgdriver]

Try to spit in mother natures eye and this is what happens to you. I hope they all are OK.

[nothappyatall]

These people are the spouses, parents, children, and friends to many people who are grieving the loss.
Posted by Thresal"

You are assuming people are dead, it only says that MAYBE two cars were buried, that does not mean the occupants are dead and if they remain in the cars, occasionally try the horn they can be found. OR they can roll doen the window and attempt to dig out through possibly 15 feet of snow- difficult but not impossible it's snow not concrete from a collapsed freeway overpass.

[nothappyatall]

Avalanches and other GOD caused calamities like earthquakes just happen at random, "telltale signs" apply in NORMAL winters and in normal avalanche locations whose history has been followed year after year and precautions taken based on how thick the snow is, temperatures etc. This has not been a normal winter by any stretch of imagination, thus the snow pack is a totally erratic windblown mess laid down very quickly and in an unstable way.

[thresal]

It's easy to be judgemental as long as it is not you or someone close to you that has been injured or killed in this avalanche. These people are the spouses, parents, children, and friends to many people who are grieving the loss. Just put yourself in their place.

[libsarenuts]

Are you kidding me? Ski junkies traveling dangerous roads to get to the slopes so they can hit the new powder are not unlike the dingbat surfers who climax at the possibility of riding a killer wave in the path of a hurricane.
Kowabunga

[weewilly43]

This is a terrible thing to have happen. I thought state authorities were suppose to look for the tell tale symptoms of possible avalanches? I guess we still have a lot to learn from mother nature. I do hope and pray that the people can be rescued successfully.