DENVER — Deputies in Grand County rescued people in about 10 cars stuck on a mountain road on Monday.
The sheriff's office said it's because the drivers relied on map apps to get them around road closures.
An avalanche on Berthoud Pass Sunday shut down the route and left people scrambling to find a way around the closure. Attempting to find a shortcut on County Road 50 only made things worse.
"Unfortunately, this is familiar every time we get a larger and extended closure," said Matt Inzeo, communications director for Colorado's Department of Transportation (CDOT).
CDOT says rescues like the one in Grand County keep happening during big winter storms. The sheriff's office in Grand County said map apps like Apple and Google Maps took drivers somewhere they should've avoided.
"It is often an algorithm that is pulling data from other nearby drivers but certainly doesn't have the context on the ground or from the weather to give you the best information," Inzeo said.
CDOT wants people to ditch those apps and use the state's program instead - COTrip.
"To check COTrip and use that as their reliable source of information that we have set it up to be," he said.
That message isn't getting to everyone, and Baca County Sheriff's Office is fed up. Earlier in January the department wrote about the problem on Facebook. Part of the post said, "We aren't sure what part of leaving a highway to travel a desolate dirt road in a blizzard screams common sense."
"That is why we have set up COTrip to specifically connect to our operations center. That is going to tell you to the best information we have," Inzeo said.
Trying to be clever may just leave you more struck than before.
Grand County Sheriff said people who get stuck on these mountain roads are from out of town, and they've never heard of CoTrip before. CDOT says they are trying to work with rental counters at the airport, so more people know about it.
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