[Update: Reopened] Alderpoint Road Closed Due to Slip Out
Alderpoint Road, approximately 3 miles east of Garberville, is closed to both west and eastbound traffic. The closure is reported to be near the former Ranch House Inn between Upper and Lower Sawmill roads.
A section of Alderpoint Road currently under construction has had a slip out, reportedly dropping the road significantly, causing county crews to close the roadway.
The roadway closure occurred just as Cal Fire crews from Garberville were responding to an electrical fire with spread to vegetation in the Palo Verde area access by Alderpoint Road. Cal Fire units were forced to turn around and take another, longer, route.
Second District Supervisor Michelle Bushnell says the closure of Alderpoint Road is anticipated to remain for several hours as crews stabilize the area and make the road passable.
We will provide updates on the road reopening as they become available.
Update 12:34 p.m.: The slippage at the construction site on Alderpoint Road occurred during excavation of the road repair site on the slide-prone area around mile marker 2.7. In a telephone interview with Ghirardelli & Associates Resident Engineer, Kevin Church, said that the road began slipping when excavation reached a clay layer. The crew lead on site closed Alderpoint Road when the roadway had dropped just a few inches, though the slide continued, dropping the road surface approximately two feet.
Contractors are working on stabilizing the base of the slide. Once that is completed, the road surface will be repaired, and the road will be reopened. Church estimated the roadway will be open “before dark” if everything goes well.
We will continue to update here.
Update 2:40 p.m.: This photo of the slip-out on Alderpoint Road was provided by Second District Supervisor, Michelle Bushnell.
Slip out on Alderpoint Road [Photo provided by Michelle Bushnell]
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That road is horrible . It’s one of the oldest starting out as a stagecoach road .and it’s never been paved. Chipseal holds it together.
That “horrible” road has been serving us for 3/4 of a century.
The last major fix on the big sink area under the big Pepperwood trees on the East end of that new construction stretch was about 25-26 years ago…
I was talking with one of the road workers while waiting for the light. He apologized for the delay and the traffic lights. I said I don’t care about waiting, I’m just glad that after the 10 years I’ve lived on this road, it’s finally getting fixed. He couldn’t hardly believe that both of those sections were single lane and slipping out for so many years without being repaired. I said welcome to Humboldt!
When I drove over that bump at 6 AM coming up the hill this morning , I thought, huh, that moved since Wednesday. Then when I went down the hill at around 11, I thought , huh, that moved since this morning. I was certain it was going to slip out in the next 24 to 48 hours, but I didn’t think it was going to be within the hour after I drove over it.
Nice photo from Ms Bushnell.
Oddly enough, it turns out my husband took the photo.
That whole hillside is a blue clay slide. The flat below that the ranch house and the pond is on is an alluvial rotation, and has continued to move since the begining of time. And… Is Incurable. Now that they touched it. They will probably end up in legal problems.
You heard it here first.
Blue Goo
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue_goo
Basics of Clay Minerals and Their Characteristic Properties
https://www.intechopen.com/chapters/76780
Unearthing the Antibacterial Mechanism of Medicinal Clay: A Geochemical Approach to Combating Antibiotic Resistance
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4705759/
Wow?
I saw it coming too…
It’s not really fixable.
Our very own last chance grade…
I wonder where they will dig the tunnel for the detour…???
I couldn’t believe how deep they dug that road base out, which is the toe of that unstoppable enormous land slide…
They must have dig down 25 – 30 feet deep.
I told my wife, when it comes to fixing that stretch…. Less is more…
They have triggered an inevitable avalanche.
That whole mountain, and every bit of that roadwork is going to end up in that pond, and from there, eventually, on down into the Meadows subdivision…
Meadows subdivision? That’s on the other side of the mountain across a creek and the freeway.
Sawmill road used to go all the way around the north side of that hill, but a slide took out the back side and it was never repaired. It was a long rough trip around.
That’s why there is and upper and lower Sawmill Road it was once the same road.
This recurring slide on AP Road was probably the reason that Sawmill Road went around it…
Sawmill road was almost certainly the often used detour around it…
They should keep Sawmill Road ready to open, with only the swing of a gate, as a detour to this slide, in case of emergency… Like today’s fire out hog trap…
Or , let’s say, for a rainy day…
Word on the grapevine, as far as when this slipout will reopen, is…
“No telling”…
But…
“Don’t hold your breath”…
I had to come home over Dyerville Loop…
(Country road, take me home…)
Traffic wasn’t bad, but I kid you not, an old cow on Satterlee Ranch was doing her best to slow folks down, to protect her half grown calf, by not only standing in the middle of the road, she was pushing and rolling a big molasses lick bucket, out into the middle of the road, on a blind turn…
Nature bats last.
Go figure…
(Yes I “mooved” it, back out of the road…)
?♂️?
Drive safe, everyone…
They have opened a Pandora’s Box.
Only hope remains inside.
…………………
The genie is out of the bottle now…
It’s never going back in…
…………………
And not the only location either, just above the switch backs and above Dyerville loop turn off.
I know just that spot; muscle memory. Just one of the many tricks you must master to pass on the Alderpoint Rd. in a vehicle.
Maybe addressing the drainage issues decades ago instead of watching county-road workers drive by a mostly non existent and almost perpetually-clogged ditch….where there was any….could have reduced the impact of the damage to the road leading up to this point.
None of us that live here or drive the roads daily are foolish enough to think that all this road damage occurred over two earthquakes one year apart.
County needs to fix things when they need fixing.
Why on earth they were mowing the sides of AP Rd in April and May when the grasses hadn’t set seed and had all the time in the world for regrowth is beyond me. It’s not like they were targeting broom like is needed on Brice-thorne and Ettersburg Road.
California likes to put roads in places where roads don’t like to be. Turmoil is experienced and large sums of money are spent, but that’s how we are.
Kym, there was an accident @ mile 39 ish on Alderpoint rd this afternoon. Out past Blocksburg.
Motorcycle accident but no injuries.
Do you know if they opened the road already? Thanks!