UTAH COUNTY, Utah — What started a few days ago is now complete as a Payson Canyon road has been completely washed out due to heavy waterflow from melting snowpack.
New video taken Wednesday evening by Moses Fletcher shows a portion of the canyon's Nebo Loop Scenic Byway washed out across the entire road, a large increase from earlier in the week when only one lane was affected.
"This is unusual, but of course, we've been dealing with a lot of unusual this year because of the amount of snow in the mountains," said Sgt. Spencer Cannon with the Utah County Sheriff's Office.
The damaged road is just past the entrance to the Shram Creek trailhead. Cannon believes a culvert that travels under the road was either blocked or had too much water, causing to it flow over and start to erode the opposite shoulder.
Due to the water and road issues, the road has been completely shut down.
"When I first came up here Monday, the erosion had come back to within about two feet of the double yellow line," said Cannon. "When I came back up, four hours later, a few more pieces had fallen off."
Fletcher told FOX 13 News that he was riding his bike in the canyon when two motorcylists heading down the mountain stopped and warned him about the road, saying it collapsed immediately after they passed.
Video below shows road moments after complete wash out (Courtesy: Moses Fletcher)
"They said they were lucky to make it across," Fletcher wrote. "I decided to continue peddling up the canyon to see if I could find it, and I stumbled upon the whole road collapsed."
Fletcher added that the whole area felt "very unstable" and unsafe, so he left after taking his video.
Public works officials aren't expected to be able to even look at the road until next week at the earliest, meaning repairs could take time.
"One of the challenges that the public works officials are facing is when can we get in here? That's going to be one, and two, where they'll be able to get in and do the work with the least amount of interruption from Mother Nature, which is a heavy flow of water right now," added Cannon, who said thousands of people will be impacted by not being able to access nearby campgrounds.
Canyon roads usually open by Memorial Day but officials report the damage is expected to push things back by about two weeks as repairs are made.
