Colorado Highway 119 remains closed this morning from MP 26-41 in Boulder Canyon as crews survey the area and work to break up roughly truck-sized rocks that fell on the road Tuesday night.
The road is closed from MP 26-41. The north detour is CO 72 to Canyon Drive and CO 72 south is the south detour for the area. The closing is expected to take the first part of the day with a later evaluation based on cleanup work.
The initial geological assessment shows that the face of the area where the rocks come from is stable and no additional rock climbing or removal will be needed from the mountain.
Cleaning up the rocks that fell will be the topic of the day. Most of the larger rocks will need to be blown up and because the area of the drop is very narrow, it will be necessary to drag all the material into a specific area rather than just pushing it out of the way.
While this rockfall did not occur in the area where CDOT is working on permanent repair from the 2013 flood, the contractor for that project, Zak Dirt, has equipment and resources available to deal with the rocks, so they are focused in cleaning work mainly.
Based on the initial assessment, it appears that there was damage to the road, so paving work will be required after the rocks are removed.
The landslide occurred due to heavy rain and snow in the area known as. No people were injured and no vehicles were reportedly damaged.