DENVER, (Nov. 29, 2004) — The Denver Post reported this weekend that traffic had begun to flow — though slowly — on Interstate 70 after a massive rock slide in Glenwood Canyon shut down the highway.

The rock slide at 8 a.m. Thanksgiving day miraculously caused no casualties, but blocked the critical east-west highway sending many drivers on a three-hour, 200-mile detour through the northern mountains of Colorado.

No one was injured because there was no one on the roadway at the time of the rock slide. An earlier tractor-trailer crash had spilled 76,000 bottles of beer on the road, forcing crews to close I-70. The driver of the beer truck, Kenneth F. Campbell, 48, of Parowan, Utah, had been hauling the beer from Fort Collins to Riverside, Calif. He was treated for minor injuries. Ironically, Campbell was charged with careless driving even though his accident kept motorists out from under the tons of debris that tumbled 1,000 feet onto the roadway, smashing the pavement and flattening guardrails.

The rock slide, estimated at about 100 feet long and 10 feet deep, sent up to 40 boulders onto I-70. Damage included a hole in an elevated section of highway where a rock crashed through and landed in the Colorado River below.

The Post reported that about 20,000 vehicles a day typically pass through the Glenwood Canyon section of I-70 affected by the slide. An additional 5,000 vehicles had been expected on Thursday and Friday due to the holiday.

In a Saturday editorial, the Post advised motorists to be wary along Colorado highways.

“Glenwood Canyon may be I-70’s most dramatic stretch, but it’s not the most dangerous. That distinction goes to the hill between Georgetown and Silver Plume; in 20 years, the two-mile segment has had over 100 accidents involving vehicles and rocks. Rocks killed two motorists in separate accidents in 1999 and two in unrelated crashes in 2003,” the Post editorial said, adding that “Colorado’s worst rock-fall accident wasn’t natural: In 1987, road crews pushed a boulder off Berthoud Pass, hitting a tour bus, killing nine people and injuring more than 15.”

— From the Denver Post, via Truckinginfo.com