Golden – About 200 tons of rock roared down on U.S. 6 in narrow Clear Creek Canyon this morning, trapping two semitrailers with boulders as big as cars and pummeling a passenger car.
One truck driver was injured in the 100-yard-long and 30-foot-high rock slide about 10 miles west of Golden. He was taken to St. Anthony Central Hospital. His name and condition were not immediately released.
Happy to be alive was Ron Franklin, 46, of Henderson, who was driving west a few car lengths behind one of the semis caught in the slide.
“I’m feeling very lucky. I’m feeling very blessed,” said Franklin, whose 1993 Chevy Lumina was caught in the edge of the slide. “I thought I was gone. It was like a movie.”
Popular with Black Hawk and Central City gamblers, U.S. 6 was closed on the east from the intersection with Colorado 58 and 93 in Golden and on the west at Colorado 119. The slide occurred about a mile east of where Colorado 119 forks off from U.S. 6.
Highway officials said U.S. 6 will remain closed for at least several days so engineers can inspect the mountainside to determine stability of the rock above the slide before cleanup can begin. It could be closed for a month.
In the interim, motorists wishing to get to Black Hawk and Central City are advised to take Interstate 70 to U.S. 6 and then Colorado 119 or the Central City Highway exist off of I-70.
The slide scooped out a mountainside in an area that was covered with mesh to block rock falls. Officials with the Colorado Department of Transportation were unsure what touched off the slide.
The gas tank on one of the gravel-hauling semis was ruptured by rock and leaked about 25 gallons of diesel fuel. Reports indicated the fuel was contained and did not flow into Clear Creek.
The semi drivers – one headed west and the other east – tried to avoid the rockslide by veering onto a small turnout, with one tipped toward Clear Creek, said Colorado State Patrol spokesman Eric Wynn.
“If they hadn’t taken evasive action, they would have been crushed,” Wynn said.
Franklin, a bus driver for the RTD subcontractor Laidlow, said he was out applying for part-time jobs, and decided to head up to see about driving a charter bus to the gambling towns of Black Hawk and Central City.
He had turned west on U.S. 6 at the intersection with Colorado 58 and 93, when a semi with a blue cab cut in front of him.
“I was a little perturbed by that,” Franklin said. But reflecting later, he said, “I guess that happened for a reason” since if he had been in front of the semi, his car would have been smashed by the slide.
Right after Tunnel 2, where the highway bends to the right, Franklin said he saw the side of the mountain start to come down.
“When you see it coming down, you’re already in it,” Franklin said. “I covered my head and laid down on the seat. I heard boulders pounding the earth and hitting the road. I thought it wasn’t going to end.”
Franklin felt his car carried along with the slide. When everything stopped, he said he couldn’t see through the dust, but jammed his car into reverse and gunned it out.
Once free of the debris, Franklin said he jumped out. The left front side was banged up, his front license plate holder and rear view mirror hung by threads, and the windshield crack now stretched from side to side.
The driver of the semi that had been traveling a few car lengths ahead crawled out of his cab.
“Man, you’re alive. I thought you were dead,” Franklin said the driver told him.
Nearly two hours later, Franklin’s hands shook as he displayed four small rocks that he had taken off of his car.
“I’m going to keep these,” Franklin said. “I’ll never forget this the rest of my life.”
Franklin stopped to shake his head in awe, saying there was no way he was going drive a bus “up here in the hills,” when a friend oblivious to what had happened called on his cellphone.
“The rock slide,” Franklin said, trying to explain. “Man, I’m a survivor.”
