From the 1870s to the late 1930s where I70 runs through Ten Mile Canyon there were railroad tracks traversed by steam locomotives. They experienced avalanches repeatedly, some so large their 11-foot-diameter rotary snowplow needed shovelers to accompany for throwing snow down to the tracks so the blower could get at it. Otherwise, the device would be creating a tunnel.
Sometimes the snow settled on the tracks with such force that the bottom layer was glaciated into ice that had to be removed with dynamite and the tracks relaid.
The picture is the rotary snowplow in Breckenridge's railroad park.
Had the railroad failed to reach Breckenridge, there most likely would not have been a sustained community and probably no ski resort. After mining died out, very few residents remained. The railroad made it possible for them to get good food and other supplies at much lower cost than bringing it in with mules and wagons.