{"id":12219,"date":"2026-03-13T11:00:00","date_gmt":"2026-03-13T17:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/rockfall-mitigation-work-begins-on-colorado-highway-3-in-durango\/"},"modified":"2026-03-30T21:32:43","modified_gmt":"2026-03-31T03:32:43","slug":"rockfall-mitigation-work-begins-on-colorado-highway-3-in-durango","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/rockfall-mitigation-work-begins-on-colorado-highway-3-in-durango\/","title":{"rendered":"Rockfall mitigation work begins on Colorado Highway 3 in Durango"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\"Colorado
Colorado Department of Transportation contractors perform rockfall mitigation work above Colorado Highway 3 in Durango on Wednesday. (Jerry McBride\/Durango Herald)<\/span>cca<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

Christmas came early for Colorado Department of Transportation geohazards geologist Regan French when she learned rocks careening off cliffs above Colorado Highway 3 had damaged a retaining fence designed to keep them from reaching the road.<\/p>\n

Colorado Highway 3 \u2013 the old two-lane asphalt road that snakes alongside the Animas River on Durango\u2019s south end \u2013 served as the city\u2019s main entrance until the South Camino del Rio segment of U.S. Highway 550\/160 was completed in 1980.<\/p>\n

Rockfall is common along the sandstone cliffs on the road\u2019s east side and is a hazard the Colorado Department of Transportation must manage to keep motorists safe.<\/p>\n

\"Regan
Regan French, a geohazard geologist with the Colorado Department of Transportation, has been working since before Christmas to plan and execute rockfall hazard mitigation on a cliff above Colorado Highway 3 in Durango. (Jerry McBride\/Durango Herald)<\/span>cca<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

\u201cIt was like a day or two before Christmas, because the email that my boss was sent said \u2018Santa brought Christmas a little early,\u2019\u201d French said with a laugh. \u201cA bunch of rocks had fallen. I was able to get out here the following week, right before New Year\u2019s, to take a look at it. That\u2019s kind of when the planning started.\u201d<\/p>\n

The retaining fence \u2013 constructed of heavy metal posts anchored into the slope supporting a burly metal curtain that catches falling rocks and directs them downward, behind a concrete barrier \u2013 had worked as designed.<\/p>\n

But rocks struck one of the support posts, French said, and it needed reinforcement.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt took some damage, but it still performed as designed,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

\"A
A rockslide damaged a retaining fence along Colorado Highway 3 in December. The Colorado Department of Transportation is overseeing a project to mitigate hazardous rocks on the cliffside and repair the fence. (Jerry McBride\/Durango Herald)<\/span>cca<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

French\u2019s job was to plan how to mitigate the risk of rocks falling onto the road, repair the retaining fence and remove rocks from a ditch beneath the cliff.<\/p>\n

That involved taking photos of the slope, evaluating risk and working with a fabricator to make a new support post.<\/p>\n

All that planning culminated in CDOT closing the southern portion of the road Monday for two weeks so crews could safely mitigate rockfall<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cI got out here on Monday,\u201d said French, who\u2019s based in Denver. \u201cWe\u2019re keeping the road shut for the entirety of this, because it\u2019s not really safe for anyone to travel while this fence is completely open.\u201d<\/p>\n

CDOT spokeswoman Lisa Schwantes said the department is overseeing the project and working with Apex Rockfall Mitigation LLC, based in Grand Junction.<\/p>\n

On Wednesday, workers tied themselves off with a two-rope rappel system to tree anchors and dangled themselves over the sandstone cliff looming above Highway 3. They worked methodically, using their feet, hands and big steel bars to jimmy loose rocks free and send them careening down the cliff face.<\/p>\n

Dropping loose rocks is the first phase of the project, French said. That makes it safer for workers repairing the fence, who will drill new anchors for the metal posts supporting the retaining fence.<\/p>\n

\"A
A contractor with Apex Rockfall Mitigation LLC repels on the cliff face above Colorado Highway 3 on Wednesday. (Jerry McBride\/Durango Herald)<\/span>cca<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

\u201cThe next phase, we\u2019re going to simultaneously drill rock anchors for those new posts and downsize that rock,\u201d French said. \u201cWe opted to do the downsizing with an excavator with a breaker mounted onto it so that the person in the excavator can work while the guys on the slope are drilling.\u201d<\/p>\n

Workers will drill into the hill at an angle to set the new posts, which will then be secured with grout and cable anchors, French said.<\/p>\n

She said Colorado has a large amount of rockfall hazard mitigation, because of how mountainous the state is.<\/p>\n

\u201cColorado has got to be one of the No. 1 states that has to deal with rockfall mitigation,\u201d French said.<\/p>\n

\"A
A rockslide damaged a retaining fence along Colorado Highway 3 in December. The Colorado Department of Transportation is overseeing a project to mitigate hazardous rocks on the cliffside and repair the fence. (Jerry McBride\/Durango Herald)<\/span>cca<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

She said that amount of rockfall management keeps her and her team at CDOT\u2019s Geohazard Program busy. According to the program\u2019s website<\/a>, the team \u201cprovides expertise in the geotechnical engineering and geohazard fields,\u201d which helps \u201cdirect the planning, design, construction and maintenance of civil engineering and environmental projects for CDOT.\u201d<\/p>\n

Part of that, French said, is cataloging every slope across the state to better understand how to manage them.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are actually building an asset management platform and inventorying every single slope across the state to help us make decisions about where makes the most sense to work on and put up a fence based on mobility and safety,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

French said her team\u2019s work is meant to keep roadways safe. CDOT shut down Highway 3 to ensure no residents were put in danger during the work.<\/p>\n

At the same time, Schwantes said, CDOT is able to perform other maintenance work on Highway 3. While the road is closed, crews have been able to seal cracks in the road surface with asphalt.<\/p>\n

The project is expected to wrap up March 20.<\/p>\n

sedmondson@durangoherald.com<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

\"Colorado
Colorado Department of Transportation is working on the cliffside above Colorado Highway 3 in Durango scaling the wall looking for hazardous rocks and sending them down. (Jerry McBride\/Durango Herald)<\/span>cca<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

stabilize cliffs and repair damaged safety fence<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":12220,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[576,28,1686,994],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-12219","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-colorado-department-of-transportation","tag-headlines","tag-heavy-construction","tag-trueanthem"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12219","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12219"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12219\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":18614,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12219\/revisions\/18614"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/12220"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12219"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12219"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12219"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=12219"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}