{"id":48504,"date":"2021-02-18T18:11:37","date_gmt":"2021-02-19T01:11:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/head-on-crash-reported-on-red-mountain-pass\/"},"modified":"2021-02-19T01:11:37","modified_gmt":"2021-02-19T01:11:37","slug":"head-on-crash-reported-on-red-mountain-pass","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/head-on-crash-reported-on-red-mountain-pass\/","title":{"rendered":"Head-on crash reported on Red Mountain Pass"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p><figure class=\"wp-block-image naviga-inline-image\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/imengine.public.prod.dur.navigacloud.com\/?uuid=8bc10e2f-1b26-4a7a-8cb3-485f384afaff&amp;function=cover&amp;type=preview&amp;source=false&amp;width=2000\" width=\"1444\" height=\"749\" alt=\"\" class=\"naviga-image\" loading=\"lazy\"><figcaption><span class=\"credit\">du1-i-syn<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p><p>Authorities responded to a head-on crash Wednesday evening on U.S. Highway 550, north of Silverton on Red Mountain Pass, resulting in injuries.<\/p>\n<p>San Juan County Sheriff Bruce Conrad said the two-car crash happened about 5:40 p.m. at milepost 78.5, just north of the big bend at Chattanooga before the highway starts climbing Red Mountain Pass toward Ouray.<\/p>\n<p>Conrad said a vehicle descending the hill, headed south on Highway 550, lost control and struck an oncoming vehicle.<\/p>\n<p>The vehicle struck had two people in it: a female driver from Silverton and a male passenger from out of town. Both were taken to Mercy Regional Medical Center by ambulance.<\/p>\n<p>Conrad said authorities are waiting for an injury report from the hospital, and he was unsure of the severity of their injuries.<\/p>\n<p>The driver of the vehicle that lost control, a man not from Silverton, was uninjured. Conrad said authorities are awaiting the injury report about the victims before any possible charges are filed.<\/p>\n<p>Conrad said Highway 550 was icy at the time of the crash, and it was snowing.<\/p>\n<p>Red Mountain Pass had reopened around 1:30 p.m. Wednesday after the highway was closed the previous day because of avalanche danger and adverse weather conditions, including high winds, blowing snow and low visibility.<\/p>\n<p>Colorado Department of Transportation spokeswoman Lisa Schwantes said crews shot down avalanches on eight known slide paths.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cAll snowslides reached the highway with snow ranging from 3 to 8 feet in depth across the roadway,\u201d she said in a statement.<\/p>\n<p>As of Thursday morning, all of Southwest Colorado\u2019s mountain passes \u2013 including Coal Bank, Lizard Head, Molas, Red Mountain and Wolf Creek \u2013 were considered snow-packed and icy.<\/p>\n<p>Chain and traction laws were in effect for only Molas Pass.<\/p>\n<p><em class=\"mwc_shirttail\"><a href=\"mailto:jromeo@durangoherald.com\">jromeo@durangoherald.com<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>control of vehicle in icy, snowy conditions<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":48505,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[576,28,29,87,254,1562,327,1469,1384],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-48504","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-colorado-department-of-transportation","tag-headlines","tag-newsletter","tag-red-mountain-pass","tag-road-crash","tag-san-juan-county-colorado","tag-silverton","tag-travel-and-commuting","tag-u-s-highway-550"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48504","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=48504"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48504\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/48505"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=48504"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=48504"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=48504"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=48504"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}