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Ten Mile Canyon avalanche caught on camera

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Tricia

Tricia

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He posted that video 4 hrs ago and there are already over 11k views.
Screen Shot 2019-03-03 at 12.50.11 PM.png
 

Kneale Brownson

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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.
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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.
 

Posaune

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Almost 109 years ago to the day (March 1, 1910) an avalanche near Stevens Pass (Wellington, later Tye) killed 96 people on a train which was stopped on the tracks because of huge snowfall. The railroad was trying desperately to rescue the train but the rotary snowplows of the day, similar to the one shown above, were not up to the task, and the train was wiped from the side of the mountain. A tunnel (the Cascade Tunnel) was dug after this to go under the avalanche chutes. and the 7.8 mile route is still in use today as the main east-west rail access for the Puget Sound area.
 

dbostedo

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So out of a powder cloud like that, how much gets left on the roadway?
 

tball

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Wow. I was waiting for traffic to subside before heading to Denver. I think, um, maybe we'll spend the night. I can see cars stopped on Vail Pass going by Copper right now. Not a good situiation. There was a LOT of snow on the hill today.
 

Mike King

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Wow. I was waiting for traffic to subside before heading to Denver. I think, um, maybe we'll spend the night. I can see cars stopped on Vail Pass going by Copper right now. Not a good situiation. There was a LOT of snow on the hill today.

Possibly safer. Give CDOT a chance to get the howitzers out.

Mike
 

tball

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I saw some remarkable shots on a couple Denver TV late newscasts tonight. They are not posted yet but look for them on the news sites in the morning.

The second slide this evening covered the eastbound interstate. Vehicles were stuck but not fully buried.

The slide crossed the bike path on the old railroad grade and the creek to get to the interstate. Amazing.

Eastbound traffic didn't start to loosen up until around 10 p.m. Glad we stayed. I would not have been comfortable sitting in stop-and-go traffic underneath the many slide paths above I-70.

It must have been a difficult call for CDOT to leave the interstate open.
 
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SkiNurse

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This is one of the two (I think the 2nd since I70 was then closed) that ran in 10 Mile Canyon (between Frisco and Copper) yesterday.
 

dbostedo

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This is one of the two (I think the 2nd since I70 was then closed) that ran in 10 Mile Canyon (between Frisco and Copper) yesterday.

OK... you're now in a darkened car without any real idea how much snow is on the car. What do you do?

Try the door, and if you can't open it, well, you're stuck waiting to be dug out, right? And if you can open the door, you're not all that buried and can get out?
 

jmeb

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OK... you're now in a darkened car without any real idea how much snow is on the car. What do you do?

Try the door, and if you can't open it, well, you're stuck waiting to be dug out, right? And if you can open the door, you're not all that buried and can get out?

Turn off the car. You don't want to put a bunch of CO2 into your air pocket the car has made.
Call 911 if you can. Depending on the depth of your burial this may be possible.
Turn on your avalanche beacon. You got one for skiing inbounds right?
Await rescue.

If you can roll a window down and confirm you can exit, do so after a few moments. You want to let everything come to rest.

You've got lots of time even if you're completely buried. You're not going to form a tiny ice bubble that is what leads to suffocation for most. You're not going to face the same kind of hypothermia either without direct contact with snow.
 

coskigirl

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There was yet another avalanche this afternoon in ten mile canyon....

Mike

Uh, I drove through this afternoon. Glad I missed it. It was pretty incredible to see where these hit, especially the second one which hit cars. I would have never thought that an avy from that slide path would cross the bike path and the river and hit 70 but it's quite clear that it did just that.

When I headed over Vail pass they were just getting people out of a car that had gone off into the steep median. There was a pickup with a trailer attached still on the road but with heavy driver side damage so I suspect someone tried to change lanes into the other and the car lost. Looked like everyone was alive but the car burrowed pretty deep so I think they needed rescuers to get them out of the vehicle and there were certainly going to be tow operations. The line on the upward side of VP was very long.
 

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