The upper part of Huntington Gorge and its popular swimming hole are off-limits to recreation for at least the coming summer due to dangerous conditions caused by last Halloween’s washout of Dugway Road, the town of Richmond announced Tuesday. Richmond officials have closed the road and the washout area to vehicle, bicycle and pedestrian traffic.
A rainstorm last October caused the Huntington River to rise and tear away the embankment supporting Dugway Road. The flooding swept away 80 feet of the Dugway Road embankment and part of the road itself, 40 feet above the river. Officials said the remaining embankment is unstable and more could slide into the Gorge at any time.
The Town of Richmond and the gorge’s owner, the Richmond Land Trust, made the decision to close the gorge to protect the safety of the public as well as any first responders should an emergency occur at the site.
“There’s the possibility of further landslides down into the river so they asked us to close it and it seemed like a good idea to us since it’s a safety issue,” said Brad Elliot, the vice chair of the Land Trust’s board.
The gorge has a long history as a dangerous place to swim. A sign onsite lists the names of 18 people who drowned between 1950 and 1994 after being caught in “deceptive currents” that pulled them down to the bottom of the pool or over the edge of the falls.
The Richmond Land Trust and the Vermont River Conservancy produced a report in 2017, before the Richmond Land Trust officially took over management of the gorge in 2018, which in part addressed issues of safety at the site. The report notes the organization’s plan to install clear signage about safety issues and make safety improvements.
Richmond Town Manager Josh Arneson said that the town issued news of the closure now because the weather is warming up.
“As the weather is getting nicer we want it to be fresh in people’s minds that they can’t go there,” he said, adding that there are other popular swimming locations that people can take advantage of, including Bristol Falls and Lake Iroquois.
Arneson explained the gorge closure will mainly be enforced through a parking ban in the area, which includes the closure of a nearby parking lot.
“The ordinance up on Dugway road is that you can park off the travel portion of the road but if you park on the travel portion of the road the car is parked illegally,” he said. “We will be ticketing and towing cars that are parked on the travel portions of the road.”
Arneson said the timeline for repairing the road will stretch into the fall or beyond because the project hinges on approval of FEMA funding. This process has been complicated by the need to include a replacement retaining wall to support the road built on land owned by the Richmond Land Trust.
Arneson explained that the town presented FEMA with two estimates — one with the wall on Land Trust land which would cost around $539,000 and another with a higher wall that could be built without formal permission from the Land Trust that would cost about $790,000. Elliot said that the Land Trust board voted in February to approve the construction of a retainer wall on their land. Arneson said the town is waiting to hear back from FEMA about which proposal will move forward. Either way, FEMA would cover 75% of the cost of the project and the rest would be paid for by a mix of town and state funds.
As the project develops over the summer months, Arneson said the most important thing is for people to steer clear of the gorge in order to stay safe.
“It’s a safety risk, and we’re asking people to stay out of there,” he said. “In terms of repairs to the road we want residents to know we are working with FEMA to get the repairs done as fast as we can.”
