The Crested Butte News Serving the Gunnison Valley since 1999
“I think we avoided a good little kerfuffle.”
By Katherine Nettles
The storm dubbed locally as the “Gizzard Blizzard” came in hard and fast during Thanksgiving week, and with it came an end to Gunnison County’s success at keeping Kebler Pass Road open longer than usual this year. As up to four feet of snow fell across the seasonal road over two days, the storm wreaked havoc on the county’s plan to run one last plowing operation through to Irwin before closing it to the winter trailhead for the season and several vehicles were stuck at Irwin on Wednesday, November 27. But a solution came together when Irwin Guides brought their own snowcat out to help.
Gunnison County Public Works director Martin Schmidt described how the county decided this year to keep Kebler open a few weeks after it normally halts plowing for the winter because of the limited bridge access on Highway 50 near Blue Mesa Reservoir creating higher demand for the alternative route to the west. Schmidt says his crews took note of the forecast and tried to stay on top of plowing the road while managing a heavy load across all other county roads during the major storm event. The county sent out an email to its list of Irwin residents saying they would come through one last time on Wednesday afternoon.
“We plowed on Tuesday at 4:30 p.m. all the way to the Y,” says Schmidt. “Then we got back there Wednesday afternoon after opening other roads and our motor grader couldn’t plow the snow that had been packed down by all the snowmobiles.”
While the county was preparing a concerted effort to get the road cleared, drivers for Irwin Guides, who run skiing and snowmobile operations out of Crested Butte all winter, caught wind of the situation and ended up solving the problem for everyone and benefitting themselves.
Brian Barry, who is starting his 14th season with Irwin, says Eli Pardini, one of Irwin’s snowcat operators and a full-time Irwin resident, used a cat to plow the road to its base (and towed at least one truck out) to get everyone down safely. Pardini then put the snow back on the road and groomed it to set the area up for a much smoother transition for snowmobile traffic.
“We received notice a few days before that the last day [the county] would be plowing was the 27th. So, we came down to the Y that morning and groomed out the road for us to do our routine,” recalls Barry.
Barry then headed out of town for the holiday, but Pardini encountered several vehicles that were stuck and needed to get to the winter parking lot below.
“He made one single-width cat pass from the Y to the winter trailhead (by the mine entrance) removing snow so all the wheeled vehicles could get back to town, then put the snow back on the road which is where we wanted it. It’s way easier for us to flip the switch by having snow on the road for snowmobile travel from that point on, instead of a messy, muddy mixture that we usually get for a while,” says Barry. “I think we avoided a good little kerfuffle. There were 10-12 vehicles stuck up there. And there was a ton of sled traffic that morning too that wouldn’t have been able to get back down very well if all the snow had been cleared for good.”
Schmidt says reports coming in have indicated all vehicles made it back to the winter trailhead. “It was kind of a perfect solution for the problem to have an already permitted snowcat clear and groom the road,” he says.
“This storm was a big three-footer and we were able to capitalize on it,” says Barry. “We had to use our equipment and our labor to do it but it’s a cleaner switch.”
