The nortbound lane of Colorado Highway 3 will be closed today and most likely on Thursday to allow the state Department of Transportation to clear boulders from the base of the cliff on the east side of the road.
“There will be a single lane from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m.,” agency spokeswoman Nancy Shanks said Tuesday. “The southbound lane will be available, but there will be full closure on the northbound lane.”
Motorists headed for Animas Surgical Hospital or businesses on Sawmill Road or Rivergate Lane must access Highway 3 from Santa Rita Drive, Shanks said.
Signs at the intersection of Highway 3 and U.S. Highway 550/160 near the High Bridge will alert motorists to the closure, Shanks said.
Four years ago this month, workers suspended in harnesses on the Pictured Cliffs sandstone bluff 300 feet above the highway freed boulders to crash down. The goal was to remove unstable slabs of rock.
The scaling followed a month after a boulder fell and smashed into a pickup. The driver was seriously injured, but her son, riding in a car seat in the rear, was not hurt.
The cliff that borders the half-mile of Highway 3 immediately north of the junction with Highway 550/160 where the scaling was done is particularly unstable.
Instability is hastened by alternating freezing and thawing of moisture in crevices.
A concrete barrier along the dangerous stretch halts most falling rock. But occassionally a small rock will bounce onto Highway 3.
CDOT would like to defuse other similar danger spots every three to five years, Kyle Lester, deputy superintendent of highway maintenance, said when the scaling was being done. He cited Bondad Hill, Coal Bank and Molas passes and Colorado Highway 145 out of Dolores.
daler@durangoherald.com
