9 replies to this topic

[Emax]

Avalanche near 11,000-foot pass buries cars in Colorado

POSTED: 2:55 p.m. EST, January 6, 2007

• Seven people rescued so far, one goes to hospital
• Avalanche forced cars off U.S. 40, Colorado highway official says
• Happened 60 miles west of Denver on main route to ski area Winter Park
• Crews said it was the largest avalanche they had ever seen

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DENVER, Colorado (AP) -- A huge avalanche buried cars Saturday and may have pushed others over the edge of U.S. 40 near 11,307-foot-high Berthoud Pass, Colorado highway officials said.

"Our crews said it was the largest they have ever seen. It took three paths," said Stacey Stegman, spokeswoman for the Colorado Department of Transportation.

Seven people had been rescued; one was taken to a hospital, Stegman said.

The slide buried at least two cars, state Patrolman Eric Wynn told CNN.

Crews were looking for other vehicles, including any that may have gone off the road, Stegman said.

The avalanche was described as 100 feet wide and 15 feet deep.

The area usually has slides 2 to 3 feet deep, Stegman told CNN. "This is a tremendous amount of snow to come down the mountain for us," she said.

Three snowstorms in as many weeks have dumped more than 4 feet of snow on parts of Colorado.

Berthoud Pass is the main route to Winter Park, one of Colorado's largest ski areas.

Stegman said the late-morning timing meant most traffic headed to the ski area had already passed. "If it would've happened just a couple of hours earlier, this would've been a very different situation," she told CNN.

[Warren733]

I wonder how many people are trapped in Winter Park, and how long they will have to stay there.

[Carl]

This mornings Avy Lab Rap Sheet from the Bridger-Teton N.F.

At the mid and upper elevations soft surface slabs will increase in depth and extent as the day progresses. These surface slabs could reach depths of three feet and lie upon slick crusts and weak layers of buried surface hoar. In addition deeper buried weaknesses persist. Yesterday three alpine skiers who left the boundary of the Jackson Hole Mountain Resort triggered a relatively small avalanche (one foot deep crown) in a cliffband above the Green River Traverse. All were swept over a large cliff. One died. Backcountry travellers are likely to trigger these surface slabs and could trigger deep slabs in steep wind loaded avalanche prone terrain. Natural avalanches are possible. At the lower elevations a few very active avalanche paths like the Cow of the Woods in Hoback Canyon may slide. Caution and good terrain evaluation skills are essential for safe travel in avalanche terrrain today.


Carl

[poloxskier]

Warren733, on Jan 6 2007, 01:20 PM, said:

I wonder how many people are trapped in Winter Park, and how long they will have to stay there.

Well no one there is trapped, you can take US 40 arround to kremling and down through summit county. That route is quite a ways out of the way but there is a way out , you could also get out via highway 14 north of kremling back to Fort Collins.

But they are predicting to have Berthoud back open sometime tonight.

This post has been edited by poloxskier: 06 January 2007 - 03:58 PM

[SkiBachelor]

An AOL article about the avalanche with pictures:

http://news.aol.com/topnews/articles/_a/hu...S00010000000001

[tahoeistruckin]

Warren733, on Jan 6 2007, 02:20 PM, said:

I wonder how many people are trapped in Winter Park, and how long they will have to stay there.

no one trapped. Take us 40 to co.9 to I-70, the slide is after us 40 and co 9.

This post has been edited by tahoeistruckin: 06 January 2007 - 05:41 PM

[Lift Kid]

Heard about it on the radio. Very scary. When it happened we were in Nebraska.

[Kicking Horse]

And I was Suppose to be on that pass inbetween 10 and 1030 today but I had Car Problems so i did not make it at all.

Maybe my Car knew it was going to happen?

[boardski]

tahoeistruckin, on Jan 6 2007, 06:40 PM, said:

no one trapped. Take us 40 to co.9 to I-70, the slide is after us 40 and co 9.

My Daughter and I were skiing at Winter Park yesterday. Heard about the avalanche at 2:30p.m. Fortunately, we arrived at Winter Park just before 9:00. Left Winter Park just before 5:00p.m. and arrived back in Westminister (a NW suburb of Denver) at 12:00 a.m.. The detour involves roughly 30 miles to Granby on US 40, then 22 more miles to Kremling, then 33 mi to Dillon, then you get to sit in the I-70 mess through the tunnel which was crawling from Dillon to the Tunnel (approx 8 mi distance, took 1 hr 10 min to travel it). The weather also was quite trecherous however there were also a couple of semi-trucks blocking a couple of lanes on the highway because they were stuck- seemed they felt the chain law didn't apply to them. Funny thing was after starting down the east side of the tunnel, I called the road conditions line and the pass was reopened. I think I might just wait for it to reopen next time. Problem is they never tell you how long they think it will be and hearing how large the slide was, I was not expecting it to reopen until the following morning.

All frustrations aside, it is good to have made it home alive and I hope those involved in the avalanche are OK.

[liftmech]

One guy with broken ribs. Hard to believe considering that at least 8 cars were partially to completely buried. There were several other cars trapped but not buried, as the slide split into three paths right above the highway.