BOULDER COUNTY, Colo. — Colorado Highway 7 will remain closed from Lyons to Allenspark into at least the middle of next week as cleanup from a rockslide continues.
The highway has been closed since June 14 because of a rockslide about eight miles east of Allenspark.
Colorado Department of Transportation (CDOT) said its crews have spent more than a week pulling down loose rock from the highway's rock slide wall and blasting boulders the size of fire trucks.
After clearing more than 90% of the rocks that slid onto the road, geotechnical experts discovered a deeper fracture area on the mountain that will force the extension of the closure through at least the middle of next week.
CDOT said the highway is closed at mile point 23 between Spruce Drive and Old St. Vrain Road, just past where the Peak to Peak Highway meets Highway 7.
Eighty truckloads of rock have been hauled off over the last few days to bring the total to about 180 truckloads.
Highway 7 rockslide
“We recognize the impact this closure is having on residents and others who use this road every day,” said Regional Transportation Director Heather Paddock. “But our No. 1 priority is safety and it is clear from the pictures of the site that this is not safe right now. We will be working every day to get the road open as soon as it is safe to do so.”
The cause of the slide is likely from the rainy weather pattern this spring. That area has not seen as much rain as the lower Front Range metro areas, but the precipitation has still been well above average since May 10.
“Understanding the geology of rock formations is a true science. Predicting when failures occur requires modern technology to measure movement as well as visual inspection. Once the massive rocks were cleared away from the initial slide area, additional fracture lines were exposed,” said Paddock.
“These fracture lines have been monitored visually over the past few days and movement is occurring. Geotechnical experts know these rocks will come down naturally in the near future. CDOT’s approach to eliminate the risk and hazard to the traveling public is to remove these in a controlled environment to keep everyone safe.”
The rocks in the new fracture area are being brought down by a system that uses air bags in the open crevices that are expanded to bring down the rocks.
“That’s how loose these rocks are. We don’t need to blast,” Paddock said. “The only drilling and blasting we are doing is to break up the large boulders that come down so we can haul them away.”
“It’s been overload. I mean, the river is definitely high," said local resident Tori Johns-Ryan. "That makes us nervous in itself.”
Johns-Ryan said with rainy weather patterns, her first concern is for flash flooding, but rockslides are also always top of mind. She lives right next to the slide with her husband Tyler in the Raymond area off Spruce Drive. He was stopped by the rockslide on his way to work in Longmont on Wednesday.
He texted her a photo of the rocks long before the road was closed down. He may have missed being involved in the rockslide by a matter of minutes.
“It’s terrifying to me," she said. "I mean, that could have been him. He could have got impaled underneath all that, and he wouldn’t have survived.”
CDOT said they maintain roadways over 35 mountain passes and have previously identified high-risk rock walls, including several on Colorado Highway 7. This spot was not one of them.
That part of Colorado Highway 7 was just rebuilt last May after it was destroyed by flood in September 2013.
> WATCH: Sky9 video shows rockslide on Highway 7
Johns-Ryan said she thought there would be more improvements to rockslide protection along the road along with all the improvements to the highway.
"I would like to see it handled in a way that makes it safe for everybody, not just the locals but all the tourists as well," she said. “So, I mean it’s the whole canyon in all honesty, it really is, that needs to be looked at. It worries me. It really does.”
Now residents who use Colorado Highway 7 on a regular basis will have to go back to using alternate routes again, like they did during the reconstruction from flood damage. Johns-Ryan said that adds about one hour to the daily commute.
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