{"id":65447,"date":"2019-12-10T16:29:32","date_gmt":"2019-12-10T23:29:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/large-boulder-falls-onto-u-s-highway-550-near-coal-bank-pass\/"},"modified":"2019-12-10T23:29:32","modified_gmt":"2019-12-10T23:29:32","slug":"large-boulder-falls-onto-u-s-highway-550-near-coal-bank-pass","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/large-boulder-falls-onto-u-s-highway-550-near-coal-bank-pass\/","title":{"rendered":"Large boulder falls onto U.S. Highway 550 near Coal Bank 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=4c35e35f-51b8-4036-95e9-0a1b50935475&amp;function=cover&amp;type=preview&amp;source=false&amp;width=2000\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1500\" alt=\"A boulder fell Monday afternoon on U.S. Highway 550, just north of Coal Bank Pass.\" class=\"naviga-image\" loading=\"lazy\"><figcaption><span class=\"caption\">A boulder fell Monday afternoon on U.S. Highway 550, just north of Coal Bank Pass.<\/span><span class=\"credit\">Courtesy of Colorado Department of Transportation<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p><p>A \u201cvery, very large\u201d boulder fell onto U.S. Highway 550 near Coal Bank Pass on Monday afternoon, and though no one was injured, the Colorado Department of Transportation says it is a good reminder to stay alert while driving mountain passes during the winter.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt could have caused a lot of damage,\u201d said CDOT spokeswoman Lisa Schwantes. \u201cWe need to be prepared driving through the Rocky Mountains at all times, but particularly during seasons of moisture.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Around 1 p.m. Monday, a boulder fell into the southbound lane of Highway 550 around mile marker 57, just north of the top of Coal Bank Pass.<\/p>\n<p>Schwantes said CDOT crews initially thought the road was going to be closed for an extended period of time.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe didn\u2019t know if we needed to blast it into smaller pieces,\u201d she said. \u201cWe thought we were going to have major delays.\u201d<\/p>\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-video wp-block-embed-youtube naviga-video-embed\">\n<div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/ps5xBpkBvrs\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/div>\n<\/figure>\n<p>Singer-songwriter Dave Mensch captured a video of the boulder after it fell on the highway. Mensch said he has seen a lot of potentially dangerous situations driving U.S. Highway 550 between Durango and Silverton over the years, but never a boulder covering an entire lane on the road.<\/p>\n<p>As it turned out, a front loader was able to push the boulder and smaller debris pieces off the east side of the highway. By about 2 p.m., the road was open in both directions.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe\u2019re very happy it didn\u2019t turn out to be too much (of a closure),\u201d Schwantes said.<\/p>\n<p>Schwantes said the boulder likely came loose as snow started to melt Monday morning, causing rocks to loosen and fall. Had someone been driving that stretch of road at the time the boulder came down, it could have been a bad situation, she said.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe need to be prepared for anything we might encounter (driving in the mountains), which includes falling rocks,\u201d she said.<\/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>Incident a reminder for drivers to be alert on mountain passes<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":65448,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[2235,576,28,1685,1384],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-65447","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-coal-bank-pass","tag-colorado-department-of-transportation","tag-headlines","tag-road-work-and-conditions","tag-u-s-highway-550"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/65447","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=65447"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/65447\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/65448"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=65447"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=65447"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=65447"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=65447"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}