At Hinsdale Commissioners’ upbeat meeting Wednesday, November 15, board members Greg Levine, Robert Hurd, and Kristie Borchers discussed at length improved cell telephone reception as a direct result of tower improvements on Hill 71 and, in an unrelated discussion with Buckhorn Engineering’s Dan Quigley during the workshop portion of their meeting, impending chip and seal paving along a four-mile section of County Road 30 at Lake San Cristobal.
Commissioner Hurd was optimistic as he described greater cell phone coverage during the commissioners’ open discussion shortly after 8 a.m. on November 15. Hurd referenced the new 80’-tall AT&T-ComNet communication tower on Hill 71 — visible on the horizon from Lake City — which became operational in November this year, dramatically extending cell coverage in combination with another new AT&T-ComNet communications tower which has been erected at Bristol Head on the Upper Rio Grande.
As a result of the new Hill 71 tower, according to Commissioner Hurd, numerous “black holes” where cell phone communication was non-existant have now been remedied.
Sharing obvious pleasure in the cell reception expansion with his fellow commissioners, Hurd told Borchers and Levine that cell telephone reception now extends down the Lake Fork Valley, lower Lake Fork residents Tom and Jeannie Russell, and Becky Weeks, for instance, now able to pick up two to three bars on their cell phones, indicative of reception in an area where no reception previously existed.
Continuing, Hurd said there is now cell phone reception on Highway 149 near the Whinnery Ranch in Gunnison County, with coverage also reported 24 miles distant at the start of Lake City Cutoff on Sapinero Mesa.
Elsewhere in the area, the extent of the 80’-tall cell tower at Hill 71 also allows cell service at the Ute-Ulay Mine on Henson Creek and upper reaches of the Lake Fork Valley past Lake San Cristobal.
When warmer weather returns with the advent of late spring and summer, 2024, Hurd confidently predicts that upper Lake Fork cell service may reach as far as Silver Creek in Burrows Park
Not totally content with blank spots in cell phone reception which still exist down valley, Hurd said he is already lobbying for yet another new communications tower — potentially funded in part through the Federal First Net emergency communications program — which could conceivably be erected on Rose Ridge adjacent to Blue Mesa Subdivision on the lower Lake Fork. He optimistically states that the few remaining blank spots where reception is unavailable could potentially disappear with a third tower at Rose Ridge in combination with the Hill 71 tower.
Continuing in an optimistic vein, Hinsdale Commissioners in workshop session Nov. 15 met with Dan Quigley of Montrose-based Buckhorn Engineering.
Buckhorn has been engaged to produce detailed plans for next summer’s long-awaited paving of a four-mile section of County Road 30 extending from the county road’s start at Highway 149 and extending up valley to the inlet of Lake San Cristobal.
The lake road chip & seal paving project is funded through a no-match $900,000 Colorado Department of Transportation Multi-Modal grant which emphasizes recreation as a key component of road improvement projects.
As explained by Quigley, detailed specifications for the project will be complete in December, after which the county will advertise for a contractor starting in February, 2024. A successful contractor will then be selected and work on the project could start as early as May or June depending on prevailing temperatures.
Engineered specifications for the project on a section by section basis total 65 separate sheets.
County Road 30, for the four-mile distance, will consist of two 11-foot vehicle lanes in combination with two four-foot bicycle and pedestrian lanes on both sides of the road.
Toward that goal, Hinsdale Road & Bridge utilized an excavator last year to widen key portions of the lake road, specifically easing a sharp curve on the road just above the county boat dock at Peninsula Park, and widening a sharp S-curve which exists in the vicinity of Pioneer Point at the Ward boat house.
Certain elements of the lake terrain prohibit a full 30’ vehicle and bike lane surface, and in those areas the bike lanes may be 3’-width rather than 4’.
Road surfacing on the lake road will be a two-layer chip & seal surface, starting with the compacted dirt and gravel road surface onto which a layer of 3/4”-diameter rock chips will be applied. This in turn is solidified with a coating of .50 oil which solidifies in less than a day, after which a second layer comprised of 1/2”-circumference chips is installed, the whole in turn then coated — similar to frosting on a cake -with a “fog coat” layer of oil.
Total depth of the new road surface including both layers of chips with oil emulsion is estimated to be 1-1/4” to 1-1/2” thick.
A similar chip and seal road surface in Town of Lake City extending from 3rd Street to the mouth of Henson Creek was cooperatively installed by Hinsdale and Gunnison Road & Bridge personnel in 1986 and — 37 years later — has the appearance of asphalt and is remarkably well preserved.
Hurd and fellow commissioners are in hopes the new lake road chip & seal paving will hold up in similar fashion given the extent and speed of traffic using the county road at Lake San Cristobal. “We’ll be extremely happy if we get 10 to 15 years’ use from this chip & seal project,” says Hurd.
Work on the lake road is scheduled to start in June, potentially May with fair weather and last a maximum of 90 days. The chip & seal application requires temperatures in the 45-degree and above range. Traffic disruptions will be kept to a minimum, with traffic control a part of the contractor’s bid; CDOT will provide two electronic messaging boards to be placed at the start of CR 30 off Highway 149 and on CR 30 at the lake inlet at the opposite end of the four-mile project.
