UPDATE | 3 p.m. — Highway 96 has fully reopened between Westcliffe and Wetmore.
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CUSTER COUNTY, Colo. — Crews have moved thousands of tons of rock and debris as they work to clear and safeguard a highway in Custer County after a rockslide on Sunday.
There is still no estimated time for reopening the stretch of Highway 96 where the rockslide happened.
Early in the evening on Sunday, the Colorado Department of Transportation (CDOT) announced that both Highway 165 and Highway 96 in Custer County were closed due to a rockslide around McKenzie Junction along Highway 96. The junction is between Wetmore and Westcliffe.
That same evening, the Custer County Sheriff's Office announced that this closure will likely last several days.
"Rocks are actively falling and the area is unsafe to begin any mitigation," CDOT said Sunday evening. "Geo-technical crews will assess the mountain side and ridgeline above CO 96 on Monday to determine the stability of the mountainside for clean-up."
Below is a map of the initial closure, which has been updated.
Crews will begin the cleanup efforts after the geologists' inspection, the sheriff's office said Sunday.
On Tuesday, CDOT opened Mackenzie Junction for drivers headed from Highway 165 westbound on Highway 96. People who were going eastbound on Highway 96 still need to take Highway 165 to Rye as an alternative route. Crews worked through the New Year's Day holiday, CDOT said.
As of Friday morning, Highway 96 remained closed between the intersection of Highway 165 and Highway 67 in Wetmore, according to CDOT.
The sheriff's office said crews have filled more than 288 trailers with 25 tons of debris per trailer, for a total of more than 7,200 tons of rock moved.
On Monday, geologist Jay Temple with the Colorado Geological Survey went to the scene and briefed the sheriff and county commissioners on the rockslide's current state and the challenges ahead.
The slide happened on the inactive Isle Fault Line, he explained, which starts near Guffey and continues into Custer County.
"The video of it is absolutely incredible," he said in a briefing posted on Custer County Sheriff's Office Facebook page.
He was referring to a video captured by Sierra Wright and Quinn Rasmussen, who were turning onto Highway 165 from Highway 96 on Sunday when they saw large rocks tumbling down an adjacent hillside onto Highway 96.
You can watch their video of the rockslide below.
“It was kind of scary for a second,” Wright told Denver7 news partner KOAA. “There was a point where we were maybe a little too close, but it was crazy. It was phenomenal to watch it happening."
Temple explained that the Isle Fault Line runs right through the highway and continues to the intersection of Highway 91 and 165.
"And it's an ancient fault zone. It was active as long as a billion years ago or more. It's not active now, or at least it may settle occasionally, but it is not a tectonically active fault," he said.
The fault has associated fractures, meaning the area will accumulate water from snow melt, which will go through those fractures.
"And then eventually it gets to the point where — especially because of the slope here — it is then going to gravitationally adjust itself and the water is gonna lower the friction in there, and as a result, this rock slide occurred along the fault system and through all of the fractures," Temple said.
The solution? He explained that crews will need to lower the slope since there are still fractures and "highly unstable slopes" along the highway.
"Eventually, at some point, it will come down again," he said.
Crews will need to use explosives to lower the slope above the highway and to move it away from the road, so if a rockslide happens again, it will not spill as much onto the roadway, he said.
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