East Animas Road (County Road 250) remains closed indefinitely after warm winter weather caused mud and debris to slide onto the road beginning nearly two weeks ago.
La Plata County road and bridge crews say the slippery mess, which covers a 100-foot portion of the road, is too wet to handle, so it’s a waiting game until flows diminish and the mud dries somewhat.
“It’s really soupy right now, so they’re going to continue to monitor it,” county spokeswoman Megan Graham said. “It’s completely weather-dependent and we have no set time for reopening.”
The weather forecast into the weekend doesn’t appear to hold the necessary dry spell. Durango has a 40 percent chance of snow and rain mixture on Wednesday evening and snow flurries are predicted for Thursday night.
Temperatures have dropped by a few degrees since the Feb. 10 slide, so mud flows have not increased on County Road 250.
The slide occurred about 2½ miles north of Durango in the 2700 block of the road, which runs parallel to U.S. Highway 550.
Muck is as much as a foot deep at the deepest point on the road’s eastern side.
Temperatures climbed as high as 20 degrees above normal this month, loosening debris and turning dirt and snow to mud in the valley. County Road 250 is susceptible to such slides as winter wanes; snow-melt debris closed the same portion of road in March 2010.
The potential for high runoff is present any time snowpack is above 150 percent of normal.
Aldis Strautins, a hydrologist with the National Weather Service in Grand Junction, said snowpack was 146 percent of the median to date on Wednesday for regional river basins, but it was 169 percent of the median on Feb. 1.
jpace@durangoherald.com
