Rock slide along Colorado's Dillon Dam closes important road for weeks while crews work diligently to get it cleared
It's not the first rock slide along the Dillon Dam Road that Dan Manguso, Road and Bridge Operations Manager for Summit County has seen, but it's certainly the biggest.
The estimated 3,500 tons of rock slid early Sunday morning and now cover both lanes of traffic, and even spilled over into the snow-covered bike lane, effectively closing the whole dang thing to anyone trying to get across for the foreseeable future.
Manguso said he was just thankful the slide happened when no one was driving.
"That could have been potential damage," Manguso said.
The clean up process will take an estimated two weeks to get done, starting from Monday the first of April. The first week is scheduled for the folks who need to do assessments and scaling on the other parts of the cliff face, and the next week is allotted for cleanup of the big rock pile and whatever else they might knock down in the process.
"3,500 tons could go up to 4,500 tons very easily," Manguso explained, after scaling operations.
While this is reportedly the biggest slide in decades according to workers with Summit County Road and Bridge, it's not uncommon for slides to come down there especially during the fall and spring seasons, with the freeze-thaw cycle.
Chain netting has kept the majority of the slide off the road, and out of the way, but it's a simple fact of life that living in Colorado and driving around the Rocky Mountains, there's a chance rocks could fall.
"Take Clear Creek Canyon," Manguso said. "It's got the same issue we do every spring, so you (just have to) know what roads you are on, you just gotta know there is falling rock hazards."
Summit County pointed out this is a great time to tout it's emergency alert system in order to make sure folks in the county will know when things like this happen as soon as they do, so sign up to stay informed!
