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Karen Sanders can remember previous slides that shut down U.S. 101 at Last Chance Grade, but they’re nothing compared to what crews are tackling now, she says.

After 13 years on the job as a Caltrans resident engineer, Sanders said nearly all of the slides had forced the department to close the road for one to two days so they can clear the debris. This slide, which became active more than two weeks ago, is on a much larger scale, she told the Wild Rivers Outpost on Wednesday.

“Those were more cleanup,” Sanders said of previous slides, the most recent of which occurred about two years ago. “This is more re-sloping the hillside.”

Crews with contractor GR Sundberg continue to bring rock and soil down onto the highway so they can haul it away, cutting an access road into the hillside for wheel loaders and other heavy equipment. They will help anything that wants to come down make its way to the bottom, halting traffic for two hours at a time to do so safely, Sanders said.

In addition to Caltrans flaggers, spotters are on the job site 24-7 to monitor slide activity, she said.

Meanwhile, crews are preparing for rain in the forecast — the National Weather Service says there’s an 80 percent of precipitation Thursday evening and a 100 percent chance on Friday.

“What we’re going to do is create a catchment — a bowl,” Sanders said. “Anything that comes down will be captured there and not come into the roadway.”

Sanders was on the south side of Last Chance Grade on Feb. 13 when the landslide shut the highway down, keeping her there for 30 hours. But, she said, she was busy doing traffic control and, along with her colleagues, figuring out what the next step would be.

“I had left my truck on the south side, but it worked out fine,” she said. “There was no way to get back over it was too active.”

Caltrans reopened the road to one-way traffic on Feb. 16 only to have to close it down again roughly two days later when slide activity picked up. The road reopened again on Feb. 22 with Caltrans shutting it down overnight so it could bring special equipment into the area to stabilize the mountain. U.S. 101 itself is undamaged, according to Caltrans project manager Sebastian Cohen.

The closure at Last Chance Grade prompted the Del Norte County Board of Supervisors to approve an emergency declaration on Feb. 23.

According to Sanders, rock, soil and trees kept coming down for awhile until two big rocks topped onto the highway. She said she was unable to say how long it would take for Caltrans to finish the project.

“We’ll continue evaluating as time progresses,” she said.

Travelers should continue to anticipate two hour delays between 9 a.m. and 6 p.m. this week and 30-minute delays outside that timeframe, according to a Caltrans Facebook post. That schedule is subject to change based on slide conditions.

For more information about road conditions, visit Caltrans’ QuickMap tool.

For information about efforts to build a bypass around Last Chance Grade, visit lastchancegrade.com.

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