{"id":15500,"date":"2025-11-27T05:00:00","date_gmt":"2025-11-27T12:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/35-foot-tall-logjam-is-blocking-vallecito-creek-removal-is-critical-to-flood-recovery\/"},"modified":"2026-03-31T03:48:10","modified_gmt":"2026-03-31T03:48:10","slug":"35-foot-tall-logjam-is-blocking-vallecito-creek-removal-is-critical-to-flood-recovery","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/35-foot-tall-logjam-is-blocking-vallecito-creek-removal-is-critical-to-flood-recovery\/","title":{"rendered":"35-foot-tall logjam is blocking Vallecito Creek; removal is critical to flood recovery"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\"The
The roughly 35-foot-wide and 35-foot-tall logjam blocking Vallecito Creek is the result of October floods that caused widespread damage throughout neighborhoods in northern Vallecito. Removal is critical to the success of the long-term remediation work that needs to be completed downstream, officials say. (Courtesy of Bruce Evans)<\/span>cca<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

A massive logjam is backing up Vallecito Creek \u2013 a direct result of the mid-October floods that forced hundreds of residents in northern Vallecito to evacuate.<\/p>\n

The debris pile, located within the boundaries of the Weminuche Wilderness, is wedged between two boulders and measures about 35 feet wide and 35 feet tall. It poses an imminent threat to downstream ecology and nearby neighborhoods, said Bruce Evans, chief of the Upper Pine River Fire Protection District, the lead agency for Vallecito\u2019s long-term flood recovery.<\/p>\n

If the blockage remains through the start of the spring recreation season, it could affect the local economy, he said.<\/p>\n

About 50 boats travel through the canyon each day during the spring and summer recreation season, Evans said, noting that whitewater tourism drives traffic to the few restaurants, markets and gear outfitters in the Vallecito area.<\/p>\n

If the obstacle remains in place, it would cut into the profits of businesses that rely on the relatively short summer tourist season to make up a significant portion of their annual income, he said.<\/p>\n

Addressing the issue is one of the most urgent tasks on the lengthy list of post-flood remediation work.<\/p>\n

The pileup could become far more dangerous if left unmitigated. It would likely freeze over the winter, creating an ice dam in the narrow canyon, Evans said. A freeze could trap a \u201cwall\u201d of water behind it, and a sudden release during spring runoff \u2013 when flows can surge to 3,000 cubic feet per second \u2013 could wipe out the remediation work planned for the channel and undo repairs already completed downstream.<\/p>\n

\u201cThen we would be right back to where we started,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

The jam first came to the community\u2019s attention earlier this month during a post-flood community meeting. Since then, Upper Pine, along with the U.S. Forest Service and other partners, has conducted a thorough investigation. Crews hiked into the site, and the district requested a multimission aircraft flight from the Colorado Division of Fire Prevention and Control to capture aerial observations.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou could see this logjam clear as day from 17,000 feet,\u201d Evans said.<\/p>\n

\"\u201cWhen
\u201cWhen an avid, experienced boater says he\u2019s never seen anything like this in 30 years, it puts my antenna up,\u201d said Bruce Evans, chief of Upper Pine River Fire Protection District. (Courtesy of Bruce Evans)<\/span>cca<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

What most alarmed him, he said, was feedback from a longtime boater and search-and-rescue member who has paddled the canyon for three decades.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen an avid, experienced boater says he\u2019s never seen anything like this in 30 years, it puts my antenna up,\u201d Evans said.<\/p>\n

While the hope is to dismantle the jam as soon as possible, the blockage sits within national forest boundaries and the Forest Service must approve a plan before Upper Pine can move forward.<\/p>\n

Evans said he sent two proposals to the agency last week \u2013 one involving fire, the other explosives.<\/p>\n

The plans were floated past Vallecito residents at the weekly community post-flood meeting last week. Those in attendance strongly supported burning the pile.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy plan is to put people (Upper Pine firefighters) up there on both sides of the canyon and have them stay overnight to babysit it until it burns down,\u201d Evans said. \u201cThe top portion of this log pile is very dry, so we\u2019re going to use a weed burner to ignite it so that we don\u2019t put any petroleum products like drip torch oil or anything into the channel.\u201d<\/p>\n

Some residents questioned how burning the debris may impact water quality, but Evans and other officials speaking of the plans said it would be negligible. Nearly every hand went up in support of the proposal, he said.<\/p>\n

\"Vallecito
Vallecito residents raise their hands in a show of approval for the Upper Pine Fire Protection District\u2019s plan to remove a large logjam blocking Vallecito Creek by burning the debris on Nov. 19, at a post-flood recovery meeting. (Courtesy of Bruce Evans)<\/span>cca<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

\u201cI\u2019ve got a picture of, you know, essentially the entire audience raising their hands saying \u2018burn it,\u2019\u201d Evans chuckled. He sent the photo to the chief forester as proof that the community was behind the proposition.<\/p>\n

Final approval from the Forest Service was pending as of Wednesday.<\/p>\n

jbowman@durangoherald.com<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Firefighters propose using fire or explosives to clear blockage<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":15501,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[1497,28,994,1500],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-15500","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-flood","tag-headlines","tag-trueanthem","tag-vallecito"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15500","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=15500"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15500\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":19689,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15500\/revisions\/19689"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/15501"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15500"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15500"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15500"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=15500"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}