James Usher admits that when people drive U.S. 34 for the first time since major Big Thompson Canyon highway flood repairs have been completed, they will have no clue about the scope of much of the work.
“It’s all buried for the most part,” Usher, project director for the Colorado Department of Transportation, said Monday during a tour of the closed road. “There was a rhyme and reason to having the road closed.”
The second eight-month closure of the canyon highway — the main route between Loveland and Estes Park — ends at 4 p.m. Thursday when the gates will be removed and the permanently repaired road reopened to traffic in time for the Memorial Day weekend.
Tourists and area residents will once again be able to drive up the canyon, accessing businesses and the river along the way, on what officials said was a much more resilient road.
And canyon residents will no longer be tied to a morning and evening access each day as they have been during two winter closures.
The project, handled by general contractor Kiewit Corp., began in August, 2016, and included two eight-month-long closures in which the road was open only to residents and only at two set times of day.
All told, the $280 million project will be complete by the end of 2018 and has involved installing 95,000 cubic yards of rock to armor the roadway from erosion, reconstructing 4 miles of the river and installing 4,000 linear feet of drain pipe.
Much of the road follows the same path it had before the 2013 flood, though new shoulders have been blasted and crews have dug down to bedrock to fortify the road as well as slopes along the path of the Big Thompson River.
They used a technique called soil cement mixing, which Usher said basically “extends the bedrock up to just below the road surface.”
While that fortification is not visible, it was necessary to make the road more resilient in the event of another flood, designed so that at least one lane will survive so there is a route in and out of the canyon.
Some of the newly completed changes, though, are very evident. Near an area known as Horseshoe Curve, the path of the road was completely changed. The previous road, which was destroyed in both the 1976 and 2013 floods, traveled along the north side of the river below Drake.
Now, a bridge extends over the river and through a newly cut piece of the canyon, rerouting the path to the south side of the river. The new roadbed is 27 feet higher and looks down on the old road, which ultimately will be torn out and planted over, allowing new river access as well as more space for the torrent of water to spread out should there be another flood.
“This will allow the river to dissipate its force,” said Jared Fiel, spokesman for CDOT. “This area got completely washed away in ’76 and completely washed away in 2013. We decided Mother Nature wants it, so we will let her have it and go around. … We gave it to Mother Nature.”
Farther up the canyon, as the road winds through Drake, crews put back a turn lane and removed 70,000 cubic yards of dirt — the same volume as 70,000 washing machines — from along the river, again to allow it an area to spread out and lose some of its force during a flood.
This change, too, is evident to those who have driven the canyon many times.
Past Drake, at an area referred to as “the slide” because of a major rock slide during the flood that is still apparent on the wall of the canyon, crews fortified the slopes as well as the road.
To do so, they temporarily rerouted the river through pipes and dug down 10 feet below the riverbed to place giant rocks for fortification. Once they armored the area and rebuilt the riverbed, they removed the pipes and let the water flow back into the Big Thompson.
This was the only section of the road that was fully closed, even to residents, during the 2 ½ months of heavy work. This particular section reopened to residents in March and will be passable to all starting Thursday.
Throughout the process, crews worked not just on road construction but also on restoring the river and habitat, said construction manager Monte Malik.
“This is a canyon corridor,” Malik said. “It’s not just a highway.”
The success of that goal, he said, is apparent by the mountain lions, bobcats, bears, bighorn sheep and other wildlife that have made appearances alongside construction during the work and by the beautiful views.
“The wildlife never really left,” said Malik. “Wildlife are very resilient, too.”
Throughout the project, crews used as much of the rock that they excavated as possible; large pieces were placed to fortify the project, while other rocks were ground down to road base. What is left, about 200,000 cubic yards, will be used for base on the upcoming major construction project on Interstate 25, said Fiel.
While the reopening of the road marks the end of major construction, work will continue throughout 2018, including completion of five bridges, river restoration and repavement from near the Devil’s Backbone just west of Loveland to Estes Park. No major closures are anticipated, though pieces of the road will be closed at night during the bridge projects for girder installation.
Johnny Olson, the transportation director for CDOT’s Region 4, was on scene during the flood, when pieces of the road were literally obliterated. He was involved with the initial emergency repairs and, for the past 4 ½ years, has been involved with planning, design and construction.
“It’s pretty amazing to see what they have accomplished, and it’s also a sense of relief to say, hey, we’re done,” Olson said while standing on the old Horseshoe Curve looking at the new bridge that pulls the road away from the river. He said he believes the road will be better off if another flood occurs.
“If we have something similar to what happened, I am very confident, 95 percent sure — there’s never 100 percent with Mother Nature — we’re going to have some sustainability. I’m confident people are going to be able to get in and out.”
Pamela Johnson: 970-699-5405, johnsonp@reporter-herald.com.