BOULDER COUNTY, Colo. — Colorado Highway 7 will remain closed from Lyons to Allenspark at least through Friday as cleanup from a rockslide continues.
The highway has been closed since last Wednesday because of a rockslide about eight miles east of Allenspark.
Colorado Department of Transportation (CDOT) said its crews spent the weekend pulling down loose rock from the highway's rock slide wall and blasting boulders the size of fire trucks.
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.
Crews have removed 100 truck loads of rock and debris from the area and there is more to go, CDOT said. On Tuesday, crews will blast some of the larger boulders, described as the size of garbage trucks and one the size of a fire engine, so they can be hauled from the site as well.
Highway 7 rockslide
“We realize the inconvenience this has caused for the residents of the canyon,” said Regional Transportation Director Heather Paddock. “But this slide has loosened a lot more rock in this area and we need to get all of that down so it is safe for the traveling public when we reopen.
“One of the hardest parts for residents is planning for the longer detours with their regular commutes, so we wanted to give this Friday as our best estimate for when the road will be open, knowing that we have a few days of rain in the forecast this week as well,” Paddock added.
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.
“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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