The Crested Butte News Serving the Gunnison Valley since 1999
Tour buses tripped up by treacherous conditions
Chains required. Travel with caution. Despite the warnings, treacherous road conditions led to both accidents and road closures over the weekend and into Monday, from southeast of Gunnison to Mt. Crested Butte. Saturday in particular was a tough day on the roads. The Colorado Department of Transportation closed Monarch Pass Monday night for avalanche control and because of treacherous driving conditions, and was reopened Tuesday.
Gothic Road was obstructed Saturday starting between 4-4:30 p.m., when some tour buses were unable to make it up the road because they weren’t chained up, according to Mt. Crested Butte town manager Joe Fitzpatrick. They eventually cleared the road after approximately two hours.
According to the Colorado State Patrol, on Saturday night around 8:30 p.m., an 11-year-old girl was seriously injured and seven other passengers had moderate injuries after their tour bus veered off an icy Highway 114 outside Gunnison. The tour bus was carrying a group from Trinity United Methodist Church in Denton, Texas, to Crested Butte when it crashed on Highway 114, about eight miles southeast of Gunnison. The bus reportedly failed to negotiate a curve, rolled off the road and onto its right side.
Also on Saturday, several American Airlines flights out of Dallas were rerouted to Montrose due to weather concerns and conditions at the Gunnison airport. Surprisingly, Crested Butte Mountain Resort’s Daren Cole reported there had been no cancellations, and the American flights that we were rerouted to Montrose were met with ground transportation to get passengers to Crested Butte.
