{"id":65328,"date":"2019-12-27T12:12:48","date_gmt":"2019-12-27T19:12:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/update-crashes-avalanche-danger-prompt-closure-of-red-mountain-pass\/"},"modified":"2019-12-27T19:12:48","modified_gmt":"2019-12-27T19:12:48","slug":"update-crashes-avalanche-danger-prompt-closure-of-red-mountain-pass","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/update-crashes-avalanche-danger-prompt-closure-of-red-mountain-pass\/","title":{"rendered":"Update: Crashes, avalanche danger prompt closure of Red Mountain Pass"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\"The
The Colorado Department of Transportation closed Red Mountain Pass indefinitely Friday between Silverton and Ouray.<\/span>Jerry McBride\/Durango Herald file<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

A snowstorm that pushed into Southwest Colorado on Thursday night strengthened Friday, creating chaotic conditions on mountain passes and forcing several road closures.<\/p>\n

As the storm reached near-whiteout conditions Friday afternoon, high-country roads became snowpacked, and authorities responded to multiple roll-offs and crashes.<\/p>\n

About noon, a driver became stuck after trying to cross a stretch of Red Mountain Pass on U.S. Highway 550 that had become buried in nearly 3 feet of snow. The Colorado Department of Transportation sent rescue crews to the scene, then corrected an earlier report that said the car had tried to drive through the path of an avalanche.<\/p>\n

CDOT spokeswoman Lisa Schwantes attributed the incident to a deteriorating snowbank that deposited snow on the highway.<\/p>\n

CDOT crews removed the vehicle from the snow, which was near the Eagle Slide Path around mile marker 79 on the south side of Red Mountain Pass, about 9 miles north of Silverton.<\/p>\n

Schwantes said Friday she did not know whether anyone was injured.<\/p>\n

Vance Kelso, CDOT\u2019s supervisor for maintenance on Red Mountain Pass, said drivers should never attempt to drive through snowslides or snowbanks.<\/p>\n

\u201cSnow hardens, and it is impossible to drive through,\u201d he said. \u201cYour vehicle will get stuck.\u201d<\/p>\n

Shortly after the incident, CDOT closed Red Mountain Pass between mile marker 71 near Silverton and mile marker 91 near Ouray because of adverse conditions and \u201cintensifying\u201d snow at high elevations. Schwantes said there was no estimated time for the highway to reopen.<\/p>\n

Because of high avalanche danger, road crews will conduct mitigation work on the Highway 550 mountain corridor Saturday morning. Drivers can expect delays on Coal Bank and Molas passes, and Red Mountain Pass if it reopens.<\/p>\n

Drivers also should note that the high avalanche danger may call for possible avalanche control operations on other area passes, including Wolf Creek Pass on U.S. Highway 160 and Lizard Head Pass on Colorado Highway 145.<\/p>\n

\u201cThese possible operations will cause lengthy delays,\u201d Schwantes said.<\/p>\n

The Colorado Avalanche Information Center on Friday issued an avalanche watch for the southern San Juan Mountains.<\/p>\n

\u201cDangerous avalanche conditions are developing,\u201d the center wrote in its advisory. \u201cToday is not the day to get very adventurous and step into terrain for the first time, despite the lack of recent avalanche activity.\u201d<\/p>\n

Southwest Colorado\u2019s ski mountains benefited from the storm. Both Purgatory Resort and Wolf Creek Ski area reported about 7 inches of new snow as of 2 p.m. Friday.<\/p>\n

The National Weather Service in Grand Junction forecast a chance of snow until Saturday night. The storm was expected to move out of the region by Sunday.<\/p>\n

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

Red Mountain Pass between Silverton and Ouray indefinitely<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":65329,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[377,576,28,87],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-65328","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-avalanche-landslide","tag-colorado-department-of-transportation","tag-headlines","tag-red-mountain-pass"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/65328","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=65328"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/65328\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/65329"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=65328"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=65328"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=65328"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=65328"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}