Highway Cleanup, US Basin, Ophir Pass

The Creeper Jeepers Gang did the first highway cleanup of the season this weekend. For those that don’t know, our adopted section of highway consists of 2 miles of Highway 550 on the south side of Molas Pass. Some things found were a tire, 3 gallons of motor oil containers, broken tire chains, a tape measure, beer cans, plastic water bottles, and to-go food containers. Please don’t litter.

From there, we headed to US Basin with a stop at the Brooklyn Mine for lunch. I thought I read this had been plowed open a couple of weeks ago, but not far up the road from Brooklyn Mine, we ran into several snow patches that eventually became impassable. It was evident that other vehicles had made it through the snow patches by driving up onto the bank to go around the deepest snow. Please stay on the trail to avoid widening the road, causing erosion, and damaging our fragile alpine tundra. We descended back down to the highway and decided to head up Ophir Pass.

Ophir Pass still had a lot of snow at the summit. The road was closed continuing past the summit toward Ophir, however, the dozer had plowed its way all the way up from the Ophir side. It shouldn’t be long before the road down into Ophir is clear of snow.

Thank you to all those who helped with highway cleanup and joined us for the fun run. It was another awesome day for the books!

Photo credits to Mary, Frank, Karin, and Mariah.