{"id":22772,"date":"2025-04-09T19:36:46","date_gmt":"2025-04-09T19:36:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/lizard-head-and-wolf-creek-passes-will-temporarily-close-thursday\/"},"modified":"2026-03-31T04:16:23","modified_gmt":"2026-03-31T04:16:23","slug":"lizard-head-and-wolf-creek-passes-will-temporarily-close-thursday","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/lizard-head-and-wolf-creek-passes-will-temporarily-close-thursday\/","title":{"rendered":"Lizard Head and Wolf Creek passes will temporarily close Thursday"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><figure class=\"wp-block-image naviga-inline-image\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/imengine.public.prod.dur.navigacloud.com\/?uuid=07947072-9639-5a23-90c7-66a798101312&amp;function=cover&amp;type=preview&amp;source=false&amp;width=2000\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1125\" alt=\"\u201cColorado Department of Transportation specially trained avalanche crews on U.S. Highway 160 Wolf Creek Pass utilize helicopter operations to place and remove remote-controlled O'Bellx avalanche control units from the top of \u201cfrequent offender\u201d snow slide paths,\u201d said Adair Christensen, communications specialist for the region. (Courtesy photo)\" class=\"naviga-image\" loading=\"lazy\"><figcaption><span class=\"caption\">\u201cColorado Department of Transportation specially trained avalanche crews on U.S. Highway 160 Wolf Creek Pass utilize helicopter operations to place and remove remote-controlled O'Bellx avalanche control units from the top of \u201cfrequent offender\u201d snow slide paths,\u201d said Adair Christensen, communications specialist for the region. (Courtesy photo)<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>\n<p>On Thursday, April 10, Lizard Head and Wolf Creek passes will close in the early to late morning for helicopter operations, and because there is no set reopening time and such work is weather-dependent, travelers should expect \u201clengthy closures.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>It\u2019s work CDOT does every spring, when maintenance crews come out and remove systems on the mountain that help mitigate avalanches during the winter months, said Adair Christensen, CDOT\u2019s Southwest Colorado communications specialist.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cNext winter, we\u2019ll close the highways again probably in early November to reinstall them,\u201d said Christensen.<\/p>\n<div class=\"naviga-element naviga-subheadline1\">Lizard Head Pass delays<\/div>\n<p>On Colorado Highway 145 south of Telluride, CDOT has advised motorists to expect \u201clengthy delays between 10 a.m. and noon.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cSouthbound and northbound motorists will encounter full stops and intermittent delays lasting up to 30 minutes for much of the morning,\u201d a news release said.<\/p>\n<p>Specifically, northbound travelers can expect delays nine miles north of Rico near Mile Point 56, and southbound travelers will encounter delays at Mile Point 61, \u201c10 miles south of Telluride at Trout Lake,\u201d the news release said.<\/p>\n<div class=\"naviga-element naviga-subheadline1\">Wolf Creek Pass delays<\/div>\n<p>At 8 a.m., \u201ceastbound and westbound motorists will encounter full stops and a lengthy delay of up to two hours\u201d on U.S. Highway 160 between Pagosa Springs and South Fork, the news release said.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cMotorists are urged to allow for extra travel time or seek alternate routes,\u201d it said.<\/p>\n<p>Specifically, \u201ceastbound travelers will encounter a closure at Treasure Falls \u2026 13 miles east of Pagosa Springs\u201d at Mile Point 157. Those traveling west \u201cwill encounter a closure just east of Wolf Creek Pass Ski Area \u2026 16 miles west of South Fork\u201d at Mile Point 170.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Motorists advised about delays<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":22773,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[576,28,2470,29,373],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-22772","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-colorado-department-of-transportation","tag-headlines","tag-lizard-head-pass","tag-newsletter","tag-wolf-creek-pass"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22772","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=22772"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22772\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":77846,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22772\/revisions\/77846"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/22773"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=22772"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=22772"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=22772"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=22772"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}