The Crested Butte News Serving the Gunnison Valley since 1999
Low snow year doesn’t mean super early openings
[ By Mark Reaman ]Don’t expect to take Kebler or Cottonwood passes out of the county until the latter half of May. Despite a lean snow winter, both roads are high alpine thoroughfares, and Gunnison County wants to make sure they are ready for heavy traffic before literally opening the floodgates to the general public. Cottonwood Pass is slated to open May 22. Jack’s Cabin Cutoff will likely open around May 15. Kebler is yet to be determined.
“Our target date for both passes is always the Friday before Memorial Day weekend,” emphasized assistant county manager for public works Martin Schmidt. “While the light winter and the weather in the valleys has made it feel like summer for all too long this year, we are still regularly getting snow on the passes.”
While March was warm and sunny, April has seen several rain or snow incidents. These tend to push back road preparation on the high mountain passes.
“Cottonwood would have cost a significant amount of money to keep open through the dozen or so snow falls that have occurred since summer hit the valleys,” Schmidt explained. “Plowing our side of Cottonwood takes about four hours of staff time, and simply checking the road takes about three hours.”
“Kebler Pass was plowed a few weeks ago and like always, it had ice and mud under the snow,” Schmidt continued. “Even though it is much lower than Cottonwood, it too has seen multiple snowstorms since it was plowed across. We always let the pass melt then dry for a few weeks, but our early rains have slowed that drying. Most of the pass is okay, but about a half dozen areas are seeing significant rutting from the few vehicles we have driven over the road, and releasing 400+ cars per day would significantly damage the road.”
On top of that preventative caution, Schmidt said the county is also replacing about 10 culverts that are failing, two of which would have required a full road closure if public works had opened the road. He said replacing a culvert with the road closed is almost twice as fast and takes about half the staff because traffic control is not required. Gates have been placed at the Kebler Y and at Lost Lake.
Jack’s Cabin Cutoff Road is part of a USFS closure that runs from December 1 through April 30 (a standard timeframe for big game closures). “But working with CPW and coordinating our local closures for sage grouse conservation, we have been keeping it closed until May 15,” he said. “The earliest it has opened over that last five years is May 15, and some years it has been later.”
Schmidt said that additionally, in coordination with the CPW, Gunnison County will be applying dust suppressant just before Jack’s opens “to save taxpayers’ dollars through project efficiency and deliver a better road experience for the public by avoiding delays.”
Schmidt added that the county plowed into the townsite of Gothic about two weeks ago, and like Kebler, they are making sure that it is dry and ready for traffic. “We are likely to open it after this next winter weather storm advisory expires and can confirm the road is ready for traffic.
“While we understand the interest from the public to access both high mountain passes, the situation is rarely without nuance, and we want to provide efficient and quality roads to the public on a regular basis,” concluded Schmidt.
