Wind River Canyon plagued by slides

It was a wild few days in Wind River Canyon as Wyoming Department of Transportation (WYDOT) crews fought rain, snow and falling rock last week.

WYDOT Maintenance Engineer Lyle Lamb of Basin said last Wednesday that quite a few big rocks had fallen in one particular area due to increased moisture and asked that folks not stop in the Windy Curve area.

When asked about the possibility of closing the road at that time, Lamb said, "If it gets too western tonight, we're going to pull out of there and close the road. It could become a safety issue for travelers and our personnel."

By Thursday morning, a WYDOT geologist arrived on scene to assess the situation and found a slope fill area below the highway was unstable and they were hoping it wouldn't take out the road.

Wilson Brothers Construction out of Cowley was working on a rock removal project and were addressing the flooding and mud slides from the Memorial Day weekend event from two years ago. They agreed to help WYDOT with clean up of the current issues.

More rain and snow was on the way. Friday morning saw a closure of the canyon with rain and snow creating blizzard conditions inside the canyon while in town, we were just getting constant rain.

Maintenance workers kept busy on Friday using plow trucks and a loader to get the rocks off the roadway, but pulled out by dark for safety reasons.

Lamb indicated the areas adjacent to the road shoulder in the canyon is designed to collect fallen rocks before they enter the highway, but there had been so many dropping the areas had filled in and rocks were rolling onto the highway anyway.

WYDOT Chief Engineer Gregg Fredrick said after rain and snow end in Wind River Canyon, the area tends to stabilize after a couple of hours. At that time, WYDOT geologists will determine if any unstable rock needs to be removed to enhance the safety of the traveling public before the roadway through Wind River Canyon is reopened.

Around 6:45 Saturday morning, the decision was made to allow traffic back through the canyon.

Clint Huckfeldt, the area maintenance supervisor out of Thermopolis said the canyon looked good, but his crews would still continue to monitor the area for falling rocks.

Unofficial counts indicate there were around 30 slides and more than 140 large rocks that need to be broken up before removal.

Early Wednesday morning, 1 a.m., the road closed again for 90 minutes as a slide covered both lanes of traffic and destroyed about 100 feet of guardrail and damaged the highway shoulder.