Small landslide on Vail Mountain muddies creeks in town
Discharge occurred 1.5 to 2 miles above the town and appears to be a natural event
Kristina Sappenfield/Courtesy image
A small landslide or debris flow on Vail Mountain on Thursday turned Gore Creek and Mill Creek a reddish shade of brown, prompting calls to the town from concerned residents.
After receiving several reports of the discoloration, Pete Wadden, the town’s watershed health specialist, visited the site on Friday and said the discharge occurred 1.5 to 2 miles above the town and appeared to be a natural event.
“It was not from a road or ski run, just a very steep, naturally vegetated slope above Mill Creek,” Wadden said. “While excessive sediment, especially over long periods, is not good for a cold water trout fishery and the associated bugs, this appears to be a natural occurrence.”
Officials from Vail Mountain said they were aware of the incident.
“We can confirm a natural debris flow occurred in a permanently closed area of the Mill Creek Drainage adjacent to Riva Ridge on May 30, and are coordinating with the U.S. Forest Service,” said Rachel Levitsky, senior communications manager for Vail Mountain and Beaver Creek.
Support Local Journalism
Mudslides have been common across the region in recent years.
On the I-70 corridor, Vail Mountain, Copper Mountain and Sunlight Mountain all saw mudslides in the spring of 2023.
In August of 2022, hundreds of fish were killed in the Eagle River when a large sediment flow from Alkali Creek, just west of Wolcott, muddied the river for nearly 10 miles.
In August of 2021, a sediment discharge from the McCoy Park expansion project into McCoy Creek prompted an inspection from the Water Quality Control Division of Colorado Public Health and Environment.
After the Grizzly Creek Fire occurred in Glenwood Canyon in August 2020, mudslides were a major problem 11 months later in July 2021, closing I-70 for approximately two weeks. A mudslide in Avon, also in July 2021, inundated numerous homes, causing massive amounts of property damage and displacing residents.
In the 1980s, mudslide activity in Vail dominated the headlines for weeks at a time.
In March 1982, a huge landslide destroyed a home that was under construction on Sierra Trail in West Vail, fracturing a water main. As a result, property values plummeted in that part of West Vail, an effect that lasted into the late 1980s when an empty lot in the area could be purchased for $45,000.
Join the 17,000 readers who get the news from us daily.
Sign up for daily or weekly newsletters at VailDaily.com/newsletter
In May of 1983, I-70 was closed for days in Dowd Junction after a massive mudslide carried mud, boulders and even a grove of aspen trees onto the roadway.
In May 1984, a mudslide in the Booth Creek drainage carried an estimated 16,000 tons of debris for 2,000 feet to Booth Creek, where a 25-foot high, 50-foot wide pile of rock, mud and trees came to rest. It was one of several mudslides in Eagle County, including one at the Victor De la Lama residence in Beaver Creek, which was “literally ripped in half by a huge mudslide,” the Vail Trail reported.
