Massive Boulders Weighing Over A Million Pounds Blocking Colorado Highway ‘Indefinitely’

Residents in southwest Colorado might have trouble getting around for a long time thanks to massive boulders weighing more than 10 million pounds combined sitting on the highway.

On Friday, Ouray, Colorado officials issued a travel warning on its Facebook page, reporting that Colorado Highway 145 will be closed “indefinitely” between Cortez and Telluride due to a “significant rock fall” that happened late Friday afternoon.

“The slide consisting of dirt, rock and two huge boulders which have destroyed the full width of the highway pavement, leaving a trench approximately eight feet deep across both lanes,” the travel warning reads. “The road is impassable at this time.”

City officials said a geo-technical team was called to the site, but are not sure when the road could be reopened. The boulder is the size of a building and it “remains embedded on the highway.” Officials said it has to be “blasted into smaller pieces” before it can be moved off the road.

The city shared a photo of the boulder, which towers over the worker standing in front of it.

According to KDVR, the rock slide was unusual, since it started 1,000 feet above the highway. Officials are now working to remove smaller rocks to prevent another slide from happening.

Meanwhile, the San Miguel Sheriff told KDVR they will build a shoulder around the highway so at least one lane of traffic could get by the massive rock at a time.

“It’s truly mind-boggling that something that big came down,” Mike McVaugh, CDOT Regional Transportation director for southwest Colorado, told CBS Denver Saturday.

McVaugh said the clean-up began right after the slide, when a plow truck and supervisor arrived. They instantly realized they would need a little more equipment to clean up.

“They showed up on site and they were like, ‘That’s not going to work. We’ve got some really big rocks here,’” McVaugh said. “[The boulders] came off a cliff band about 850 feet above the highway.”

The Colorado Department of Transportation estimates the boulder weighs 2.3 million lbs. Another boulder that weighs 8.5 million lbs. cut an eight-foot trench into the ground.

The department issued another update Saturday, noting that once the mitigation and scaling work is finished, workers can start drilling and blasting the boulders.

“A geo-technical crew conducted a ground and aerial investigation of the steep terrain earlier today and determined rock scaling is needed,” the latest update reads. “A team has been airlifted to the ‘brow’ of the ridgeline to clean and clear loose rock that has been found on the face of the ridge. Loose and unstable rock will also need to be cleared from the slope of the mountain. (Scaling is the removal of unstable and loose rock to prevent unpredictable rock fall.)”

Photo credit: Facebook/City of Ouray