After the tales the trio from the previous day at Vail brought home everyone was excited to get to Vail and see the snow conditions for themselves, official snow reports of 11 fresh inches overnight at the base of Vail added to the energy! Everyone gathered their gear with surprising speed for the relatively early hour, and hurried to the parking garage. While this was happening, I asked Socha to check road conditions. The news soon broke, I-70 was shutdown in both directions either side of Vail due to impassable conditions. A quick check of Google Maps revealed there was a back way in through Leadville, twice as long and through a series of high passes, that would drop us onto I-70 a few miles from Vail between the roadblocks. The crew debated the dangers, versus the amazing skiing if we could get there.
The 7 inches of fresh at Breckenridge where we were staying meant there was a good alternative, and a couple people made that argument. Eventually the adventure seekers won out, and with everyone’s agreement we loaded the vehicle and headed for the garage door. As soon as the door open there were some notes of surprise, a thigh deep drift blocked the exit and there was several inches of unplowed snow on the road in front of the hotel. It was also snowing hard and blowing strongly, definition of a blizzard. I clicked it into 4wd and pulled out, the trek was on! Even the town was a winter wonderland with snow covered roads. Easing down highway 9 we listened to weather and road reports, 11 inches on the ground in Vail and predicted heavy snow through mid-afternoon was good news for skiing. Road conditions were deteriorating across the region however, I-70 was now closes both directions at Eisenhower tunnel and US 6 was closed both directions for Loveland pass, essentially cutting us off from Denver completely. Reports were coming in of low to zero visibility in the passes with heavy snow. One pass was reported shut down due to winds in excess of 100MPH!
Against this backdrop, the mood became more serious, and briefly upon entering the town of Frisco where US 9 Meets I-70 the wind picked up and made visibility and vehicle control difficult even at my 30mph pace and I considered turning back for the safety of the group. Debating my judgment though I turned onto I-70 for the short jaunt to our turn off for Leadville. After sitting stopped on I-70 approaching the road block for a long period of time we finally exited and began the trek upwards on the 2 lane highway to get around the I-70 closures. The road was nearly empty which was both convenient and a bit eery as it was now the only means of getting into central CO, it was as if everyone else knew enough to stay home today. Not helping my feeling of trepidation much at all there. We cruised easily in 4wd for a while at reasonable speeds, actually passing a few slow pokes along the way.
Once we hit the higher elevations things got very interesting very quickly, the snow and wind picked up dramatically, and the depth of the snow on the road surpassed 6 inches. It was obvious it had been plowed that day, but it was just piling up too fast for them to keep up with it. On exposed stretches the blowing snow and deep snow on the road made it increasingly difficult to distinguish between road, shoulder, and sky. I asked for a pair of goggles and Socha hurriedly passed up a nice pair. They helped, and onwards we we went.
Then, on a downhill stretch we saw a snowplow coming at us. However, in an effort to clear more of the road, he was driving right down the middle with a wide plow! After waiting for him to shift back to his lane it became apparent he had no intention of doing so, eying up the right shoulder I waited until he got within 700 feet or so and then pointed the suburban onto the shoulder in 1-2 feet of snow and punched it. I could feel the 4wd fighting for traction, letting off the throttle meant that the deeper snow on the far right pulled us further off the road, so I kept heavy throttle on and baja-ed down the shoulder at speeds nearing 45 mph. I was fairly confident in the 4wd’s ability to keep pulling us straight, though it did whip back and forth as we hit even deeper pockets of snow. Their were some screams and shouted lectures from the back seat at this point, we soon passed the snowplow resulting in an instant of inability to see anything while barreling down the shoulder. After that point I moved back over and slowed down.
The hairpins descending back to I-70 after Leadville were pretty harry and we slid straight through one, luckily there was no oncoming and I just cut the corner and let it catch again before the snowbank. I did not enjoy the hairpins at all, the consequences for losing control were large and the conditions some of the worst on the trip. We made it through though and soon pulled into Vail.
Photo Credits
- Ben Larson
- Jenna Baker
