A $3 million effort by Colorado transportation officials to make travel on U.S. 6 in Clear Creek Canyon safer by removing thousands of tons of potentially hazardous rock from the narrow canyon west of Golden has been suspended for the warm season.
Work, which began in February, wrapped up Wednesday and won’t resume again until November.
The mitigation project includes rock-scaling and the installation of rock and mesh anchors and 285,000 square feet of wire mesh. The work was halted because of the expected increase in summertime traffic through the canyon.
So far, the project team has removed approximately 35,000 tons of rock that could endanger motorists or damage the road if it were to fall from the canyon’s walls, according to the Colorado Department of Transportation.
A worker on the project died in March after falling about 70 feet.
The project is scheduled to be completed by spring 2019.
