48 Chalk Creek Electric Poles Set with Helicopter

Residents and visitors to Chalk Creek had something besides the stunning scenery and historic structures to pull over and check out at the end of August. As part of a 10-mile reconstruction project of the main electric line in Chalk Creek, 48 electric poles were set in the area in one day by helicopter.

The helicopter was used to set the poles in terrain where a truck cannot access a pole site. Prior to placement of the poles by helicopter, 6 foot or deeper holes were dug by hand. That involved climbing hills or hiking into a location with needed tools, then hand-digging the holes with shovels, post hole diggers, spoons, and buckets — no easy task in central Colorado’s terrain.

Once placed, crews then repeated their trek to the pole with equipment and backfilled the hole, tamped the soil down and climbed the pole to run line, and install equipment on the pole to run electricity through new lines on the new pole.

View videos of some of this spring and summer’s pole sets on Sangre de Cristo Association’s system on our website, under the Current News and Hot Topics section on the landing page.