La Plata County Sheriff’s spokesman Dan Bender took this photo of the rockslide Monday on Red Mountain Pass from a helicopter. Arrows point to several features of the slide and work being conducted on the slide by crews with the Colorado Department of Transportation. A larger version of the photo is available at durangoherald.com.
La Plata County Sheriff’s spokesman Dan Bender took this photo of the rockslide Monday on Red Mountain Pass from a helicopter. Arrows point to several features of the slide and work being conducted on the slide by crews with the Colorado Department of Transportation. A larger version of the photo is available at durangoherald.com.Courtesy of Dan Bender

Red Mountain Pass will remain closed at least through Wednesday while technical climbers mitigate a rockslide that covered the road for 10 days.

Drivers headed up the Western Slope continue to be rerouted through Mancos, Dolores and over Lizard Head Pass.

Climbers spent daylight hours Monday setting up a rope path from the top of the slide down toward U.S. Highway 550.

“We were lucky this group of expert climbers was in Ouray,” said Nancy Shanks, spokeswoman for the Colorado Department of Transportation. “They got all the safety lines installed Monday on the north side of the talus field.”

Rock scalers will use the rope to bring loose rocks down the steep mountainside. That work is expected to begin today.

A helicopter also is expected to drop netting onto a debris field, which will help stabilize loose rocks.

The netting is scheduled to arrive from Rifle midday today, Shanks said, and the helicopter will pick it up at Ironton Park to drop it in place.

Larger boulders closer to the road will be jarred loose by hand beginning today.

“The progress (Monday) was great,” Shanks said. “The weather’s certainly on our side, and we’ll see how much progress we make (today). There is still no estimate on the reopening of U.S. 550.”

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Alternate route

People who want to travel north on U.S. Highway 550 from Durango to Ouray and points beyond must take an alternate route until rockfall mitigation work is completed by Colorado Department of Transportation crews near Ouray.
The best route is over Lizard Head Pass on Colorado Highway 145: Go west on U.S. Highway 160 to Mancos (27 miles), turn north on Colorado Highway 184 toward Dolores (17 miles), take Colorado Highway 145 over Lizard Head Pass to just past Placerville (75 miles), and take Colorado Highway 62 east to Ridgway, where it intersects with U.S. Highway 550 (23 miles). (To get to Ouray you must go back south 10 miles on U.S. 550.)
The 143-mile route from Durango to Ridgway will take about three hours under good driving conditions.