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History: Roadblocks

“Huge Landslide Blocks Snowmass Valley Road” reported The Aspen Times in the spring of 1952. “A tremendous landslide occurred last Friday on the Christiansen ranch on Snowmass that has to be seen to be believed. Half a mountain slid down into the valley blocking the road, even covering the creek at that point was on the far side of the valley. The creek was not dammed as it evidently under the debris. The slide is approximately two miles long starting far up the mountain on the west dropping down to a wide bench and then continuing on across the valley floor where at the point the valley is approximately half a mile wide. The path of the slide is approximately half a mile wide with an estimated depth up to 75 feet. Pitkin County immediately put a grader and cat on the road into upper Snowmass from Brush Creek getting it into shape for travel to Snowmass Falls Ranch and to Snowmass Lodge……The Christiansen brothers, David and Perry, lost 14 head of purebred bucks by drowning, but luckily they had moved a large band of sheep from the exact spot where the slide came down. Horses had been in a pasture high on the mountainside in the path of the slide, but they had just been moved the day before. Besides the bucks the Christiansens lost a good many acres of lush creek meadowland.”

Image of the log buildings and corrals of the Lindvig Ranch (aunt to the Christiansens), which later became the Snowmass Falls Ranch, circa 1910 by James “Horsethief” Kelley.

Snowmass


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