Mountain likely to remain off-limits to visitors

David Kihara and Molly Ball

Friday, Jan. 14, 2005 | 9:31 a.m.

Mount Charleston will likely remain closed to visitors during the Martin Luther King Jr. holiday this weekend because of the threat of avalanches in the area, a Clark County official said on Thursday.

The mountain has remained off-limits to everyone but residents of the mountain and emergency vehicles since Tuesday, when the authorities closed state routes 156, 157 and 158.

Metro Police also strongly advised residents of the Mount Charleston subdivisions of Echo Canyon, Old Town and Cathedral to evacuate the area on Tuesday and have closed off the road leading to Echo Canyon, effectively closing the area even to residents.

Neither the Metro advisory nor the route closures were lifted on Thursday, said Chris Jones, public information officer for Metro.

The weather and snow conditions at the top of Mount Charleston, while generally improving, are still not safe enough for the general public to be in the area, said Bobby Shelton, spokesman for Clark County Public Works, on Thursday.

He said that while it is not 100 percent that the mountain will be closed to recreation for the long three-day weekend, there is a very good chance that it will remain sealed off to nonresidents of the mountain.

"The weather conditions up at Mount Charleston during the last few weeks, the combination of the strange weather patterns, leads to unstable snowpacks," Shelton said, in reference to the sections of snow and ice atop Mount Charleston.

Because the snow packs have not yet solidified completely, and likely will not freeze to a safe level until Saturday under the most ideal circumstances, the mountain is probably going to remain closed during the holiday, he said.

"We're not even sending any snow plows or snow blowers up to the mountain until Tuesday because we're afraid the vibrations from the equipment could aggravate the situation," he said.

Doug Abromeit, who is an avalanche expert with the Idaho-based National Avalanche Center, said at a press conference on Thursday that his team has been checking on the road conditions and the surrounding area to determine the danger level from avalanches.

"If the weather continues like it is, the snowpack will continue to improve," he said. "We went to Kyle Canyon and the surface of the snow is beginning to freeze."

He said there is about a 12-inch crust of frozen snow, but "beneath that frozen cap the snow is very wet and moist. You can literally reach in and squeeze the water out of the snowpack."

"So that does not indicate a stable snowpack," he said.

Metro spokesman Chris Jones could not confirm that the authorities would keep State Routes 156, 157 and 158 closed during the weekend and said decisions are being made on a day-to-day basis.

Only residents are allowed up the mountain -- no visitors or media -- because "residents are going to a specific spot. They are not there traipsing around," he said, adding that residents are accustomed to and prepared for the mountain conditions.

Employees of the Mount Charleston Lodge, one of the businesses located at the top of the mountain, had heard from officials that the mountain may remain closed during the three-day weekend and met the news with a sense of sadness.

"It hurts us badly," said Paul Card, manager of the Mount Charleston Lodge. "This should be a very big weekend for us."

Even though the lodge had full reservations for its 23 cabins, the reservations needed to be re-scheduled to account for possible closures over the weekend, he said. The lodge will be open to serve police and any residents in the area, he said.