Making Cottonwood Pass more passable: Unofficial I-70 detour eyed for improvements

It’s not paved, it’s not open year-round, it’s no place to drive a semi, and its use is discouraged by the Colorado Department of Transportation as a detour route when Interstate 70 through Glenwood Canyon is closed.

But the Cottonwood Pass Road southeast of Glenwood Springs is proving popular and useful nonetheless for some motorists trying to get between that city and points east during increasingly common I-70 closures, and Eagle and Garfield counties are looking at ways to improve its functionality.

Officials in the two counties have renewed discussions about possible upgrades to the road to improve its viability for use by motorists when I-70 through the canyon shuts down.

The latest talks regarding the Cottonwood Pass Road have been prompted by last year’s Grizzly Creek Fire, which closed the highway through the canyon at the time of the fire for two weeks, and by multiple closures in the canyon this year due to debris flows resulting from rainstorms on fire-scarred slopes. One such closure started Thursday night and was expected to last at least through the weekend.

Previous discussions about possible improvements to the Cottonwood Pass Road date back earlier than last year, prompted by rockfall incidents that have previously closed I-70 in the canyon.

CDOT strongly discourages use of Cottonwood Pass and other county and Forest Service roads in the Glenwood Canyon area as detour routes when I-70 closes, in part because they aren’t built for heavy traffic or commercial, oversize vehicles. In the case of safety closures in Glenwood Canyon that are expected to last more than an hour, CDOT recommends a northern alternate route using Colorado Highway 9, U.S. Highway 40 and Colorado Highway 13. That detour adds about 2.5 hours of travel time as opposed to driving through the canyon, CDOT says.

While CDOT last year recommended a southern detour route partly incorporating U.S. Highway 50, that road is currently subject to extensive closures between Montrose and Gunnison for a major road reconstruction project. While CDOT generally hasn’t been recommending its use as an alternate route this year, it has arranged for keeping it open through the construction zone through the duration of the Glenwood Canyon closure that started Thursday.

PROTOCOLS ON THE PASS

Given the use of Cottonwood Pass Road that is occurring during I-70 closures even with CDOT advising against it, Eagle County Manager Jeff Shroll said the county has protocols in place to address detour traffic on the pass during closures. These partly involve getting law enforcement and road-and-bridge personnel set up to keep trucks off the road, as it’s not built for such traffic and tractor-trailer usage,, can and has forced the road to shut down.

During I-70 closures, officials also escort vehicles in one direction and then the other on a steep, narrow stretch of the Cottonwood Pass Road in Eagle County. Shroll said there are a few spots too narrow for vehicles going in opposite directions to pass, meaning someone has to back down during normal use of the road.

Shroll said the Cottonwood Pass measures Eagle County has taken during I-70 shutdowns, working in cooperation with Garfield County, have helped out in the short term, addressing in particular the need for locals to pass between the two counties, such as doctors, teachers, law enforcement and other workers who commute between the two counties for work.

Shroll said it’s been an eye-opener with the canyon shutdowns to see how connected both sides of Glenwood Canyon are. With many health care providers commuting through the canyon in one direction or the other, conducting scheduled surgeries and getting patients and doctors back and forth becomes challenging when travel between the two counties is obstructed, he said.

Non-locals from places including Mesa County also can ignore CDOT’s request and choose to try Cottonwood Pass during I-70 shutdowns, though Shroll advised it’s likely to be slow-going, especially in the case of extended closures.

Motorists also should be aware that Cottonwood Pass isn’t immune to its own weather-related closures, such as a shutdown that occurred on Thursday, even as I-70 in the canyon was closed.

‘DANGEROUS’ NOW

Shroll said safety is the concern for Eagle County officials when it comes to the use of the Cottonwood Pass route by detour traffic.

“It’s a dangerous road as it is,” he said.

Eagle County is doing traffic counts on the Cottonwood Pass Road to compare normal daily traffic to usage when I-70 is closed, and also usage when CDOT does more aggressive messaging at Rifle and in Eagle County at Wolcott to get motorists off I-70 at those exits during closures. Shroll said those counts aren’t yet available, but Cottonwood Pass usage as a detour route significantly drops when CDOT works to divert traffic at Rifle and Wolcott.

Shroll said conversations between Eagle and Garfield counties are focusing on what minimal improvements could be made to make it safer and easier to drive in the summer when I-70 closures occur, and what those improvements would cost.

“That certainly is rising to the top of our to-do list as we are starting to see more canyon closures,” he said.

He said simple improvements, some of which already in progress, include things such as filling potholes, knocking back trees and brush and scaling back dirt from hillsides to improve sight distances at corners, and clearing ditches of debris such as boulders to keep them draining properly and enable vehicles to pull over into the ditches in a pinch.

When it comes to upgrading the Cottonwood Pass route, much of it would involve the Eagle County section. Garfield County Commissioner Tom Jankovsky said that on the Garfield County side, the road is chipped-and-sealed to maybe two to three miles from Eagle County line, and is in pretty good shape to the county line.

“The improvements would have to come on the Eagle County side. They would have to be the champions of that,” he said.

Shroll said of Eagle County, “We have all the hard sections.”

YEAR-ROUND USE ‘A HEAVY LIFT’

The cost of improvements could quickly add up. Shroll said that he doesn’t know that Eagle County is in a place to keep the road plowed and open year-round, calling that “a pretty heavy lift.” He said it’s a higher-altitude road than any that the county now maintains year-round, can get heavy snow drifts, and the cost of full-time winter maintenance wouldn’t be insignificant. Cottonwood Pass is at about 8,300 feet in elevation.

Shroll said the initial focus is on what improvements could be made to the road as a summer route, and after that is determined, officials can ask if those improvements would be enough to make winter travel safe. He said a steep stretch of roadway on the Eagle County side that probably exceeds a 9% grade in places likely would require work to lower the grade before winter travel would be feasible.

In terms of paving the road, “those discussions haven’t taken place yet,” Shroll said.

Shroll said he thinks it would take more than $30 million to make the road a paved, two-lane route.

“That’s not in the cards right now,” he said.

He said Eagle County lacks the right of way to make Cottonwood Pass a full-time, viable alternative to I-70.

Jankovsky said it would probably require $40 million to $50 million to make the road an alternative route to I-70 for passenger cars and small trucks.

“We would be happy to team up with Eagle County on that, but like everything it’s (a question of) the funding source,” he said.

CDOT’S VIEW

Cottonwood Pass once was considered as a possibility for the I-70 route before officials decided to route the highway through Glenwood Canyon. In 2016, after a February rockfall closed I-70 in the canyon for days, CDOT’s then-director, Shailen Bhatt, said creating a year-round detour route on Cottonwood Pass was among possible long-term approaches for dealing with rockfall-related closures in the canyon, but pointed to cost as a concern. CDOT and officials with some local governments met the same year to hold a preliminary discussion about the idea of making Cottonwood Pass an alternate route during closures, but the idea seems to have stalled since then.

Asked if this year’s debris flows have prompted CDOT to consider building an alternate route to I-70, agency spokeswoman Elise Thatcher said it’s not considering doing that.

“Cottonwood Pass and all other routes through nearby canyons or mountain terrain are county roads or U.S. Forest Service roads. CDOT does not have jurisdiction over these roads,” she said.

She said Cottonwood and other routes also would be susceptible to wildfires and post-wildfire events like debris flows, and she cited the “extremely high cost” to build and maintain any such route.

In response to the fire, CDOT last fall took measures to increase rockfall protection in Glenwood Canyon “to protect the roadway from existing rockfall hazards and possible additional rockfall caused by rain on the Grizzly Creek burn scar,” Thatcher said.

Following debris flows, CDOT also has been immediately clearing box culverts to maintain safety during mudslides, she said.

CDOT officials believe a berm placed in the Hanging Lake Tunnel area of the canyon after the fire has protected that area from flooding and debris impacts multiple times. In a press conference Friday, CDOT Executive Director Shoshana Lew said additional mitigation fencing has been placed in the canyon. She also noted that multiple agencies have been involved in revegetation efforts in the canyon, but added that such new vegetation isn’t as protective as the trees the fire burned. But she also said that over time, she thinks the ecology in a fire area stabilizes.

CDOT also has been working on projects to better allow designated alternate routes to stand up to the increased traffic when I-70 is closed. These included improvements to Colorado Highway 13 north of Rifle last year, chip-sealing last year on Highway 50, and the current project there.

Lew said CDOT has been working with federal officials who manage the interstate highway system regarding the Glenwood Canyon issue. She said it’s a bit soon to know what the long-term effects of what’s been occurring over recent weeks in the canyon will be.

“But that said, there are some very big natural forces here in play that just create some fundamental challenges, some of which can be accelerated and some of which nature heals over time,” she said.

PASS PROJECT ‘A NECESSITY’

Mike Gamba, a civil engineer in Glenwood Springs who attended the 2016 Cottonwood Pass discussion as Glenwood’s mayor at the time, is an ardent advocate of making that road a year-round alternative to I-70.

“This is one of those practical things. In my opinion it’s a necessity. This isn’t a want. ... This is a situation that affects the economies of the region when the canyon is closed,” he said.

He thinks the Cottonwood Pass Road is of state importance, and the bulk of funding to improve it should come from the state, with contributions also possibly coming from local governments.

“If we as a region have unanimous support, saying this needs to happen, then CDOT will figure out a way to make that happen,” Gamba said.

Gamba is sympathetic to people living on the Cottonwood Pass route when it comes to the impacts they would see from an improved route with more traffic.

But he added, “In this case, I’m more sympathetic to the larger community that has significant impacts to their livelihoods and their lives because of the closure of Glenwood Canyon.”