Massive Avalanche Buries Highway in Colorado!

[ski diva]

This is truly frightening.

Apparently a massive avalanche occurred on Route 40 about 60 miles west of Denver near the Berthoud Pass, burying cars and forcing others off the road. This is the main route to Winter Park; the highway is now closed in both directions.

Let's all pray that everyone is all right.

 

[ski diva]

Update: Six people were rescued from two cars, and one was taken to the hospital.

The avalanche was 200 ft wide and 15 feet deep.

 

[Little Lightning]

The local news is reporting that Berthoud pass is closed indefinitely. CDOT believes that no one else is under the slide.

Good Samaritan's dug the people in the cars out with shovels and ski poles.

Traffic is diverted to Granby, Kremmling then Silverthorne to I-70. Not a good way to get back to Denver, about a 2 hr. drive.

High winds and fresh snow fueled the avalanche.

Because of high winds a bus carrying a group of skiers from Florida was blown off Pena Blvd on the way to DIA. No one was injured, thank goodness.

Another snowstorm is due on Friday. Welcome to Colorado!

Kathi

 

[volklgirl]

I was flipping through channels while I was sitting here and just caught the report on CNN. Wow!!!!

 

[tugboatjulie]

I'm a newbie here as well as to skiing out west. We'll be going to Montana in 2ish weeks and are a bit fearful after hearing of all the snowed in news and now this. Is this more prevalent in CO than MT? We'll be at Big Mtn. (at least, we hope to get there). :0 Any advice or nerve-calming comments? (We're in Charleston, SC, so we're just used to hurricanes.) Julie

 

[Jilly]

You even hit the Saturday evening news here in Canada. But then nothing much happened today, one injury in the middle east. Great snow, but this is the problem that comes with it. And to think that avalanche control did a controlled slide just 3 days ago!! Now can Mother nature, USP, Fedex, send some our way here in the East??

 

[Little Lightning]

:D

Don't count on UPS to deliver snow. A Christmas present shipped from Baltimore via UPS arrived yesterday!

TugboatJulie, on the news they said that Colorado has the highest incidents of avalaches. I've been to Big Mountain and I don't remember much talk of avalanche danger. As I recall, the road to the ski area is not above tree line. Skiers get into trouble when they go out of bounds into areas where the terrain is steep and there are no trees.

The area where the slide occurred is above tree line with a very steep slope. It doesn't take much to set off a slide, a gust of wind, skier, a loud noise, etc.

To help prevent avalanches at the ski areas the ski patrol frequently sets off blasts to start a slide so its rare to have an avalanche within bounds.

You may have snow on the roads but the road crews generally do a good job of keeping the roads open.

From what I understand, it's very unusual to have big dumps of snow in Denver at this time of year. The snow that closed DIA was very light and it was very windy causing whiteouts and drifting snow which made it difficult to keep the runways clear.

Avalanches have been known to occur at little ski areas in the midwest. Near Cincinnati there is a ski area called Perfect North Slopes. Last winter they had a snow slide that took out the poles for 1 lift chair and damaged another one. Fortunately, it happened at night and no one was injured.

Enjoy your trip and don't worry about the weather.

Kathi

 

[Shellski]

Very scary stuff. I have driven that road in a big snowstorm (on the way back to Denver from Steamboat), I can easily see how an avalanche could happen.

Thank goodness no one was badly hurt.