I Waited in an Eight-Hour Traffic Jam for a Powder Day

I knew something was wrong when we finally got to Siverthorne and the cars just stopped moving. We’d left Winter Park Resort on Monday, January 15, at noon, after a weekend ski trip. The closure of Berthoud Pass meant we’d need to take the long way home by backtracking westbound on U.S. Route 40, to get to Colorado Highway 9 southbound, and then finally to Interstate 70 eastbound to Denver. It would be a 141-mile trip, instead of the usual 66-mile drive on I-70. The going had been slow for three hours. And as we neared the I-70 ramp in Silverthorne at about 3 P.M. traffic slowed to a creep.

All of the town’s side streets filled up as people attempted to cut in line. I saw a few drivers swerve past traffic and around the median to get just a couple cars ahead of where they had been. And then everything just stopped.

People got out of their cars to stretch and check out the town. Motorists took their dogs on walks. While our driver stayed in the car, two of us strolled over to the nearest gas station to buy snacks, and we saw a massive line to use the bathroom. Some folks gave up and started peeing behind the building. It was freezing and extremely windy, and the gusts kicked up plumes of snow.

The Snow

When the snow is this good, you don’t break for lunch. That was our approach, anyway, when we skied Winter Park on Sunday. We got to the base at 10 A.M., and to be honest I had never seen so many skiers. We had six in our party but we decided to just hit the singles line for the day, and that was the right call.

We knew from our first run that the snow was worth the lift lines and crowds. We skied through the trees and everyone got a fresh line. As you may know, the snow thus far in Colorado has not been awesome, and the previous day we’d experienced ice and hard pack at Copper Mountain. So to see that much powder dumped overnight—and still falling—was one of those one-in-a-ski-season situations.

We were having too much fun to stop. We stuffed granola bars and leftovers in our pockets and just ate them on the lift. We skied right up until they closed the lifts for the day.

Home Sweet Home

Traffic was bumper-to-bumper the entire way on I-70. I fell asleep while we were stopped in the Eisenhower Tunnel. When I woke up from my nap, we still hadn’t made it out.

People drove conscientiously when it was slow, but once things got moving everyone became aggressive. We saw a jeep flipped completely over on the side of the road next to four other cars.

I finally got to my house at 8:06 P.M. I felt relieved to finally be out of the car. My roommate and I had been squished into the back of the Subaru next to the skis for the entire drive. Our butts had fallen asleep and we were exhausted, but we were happy to get out and move our bodies. We knew we’d have a good story to tell our friends.

The Right Combination

I know that a lot of people are going to disagree with my sentiment that an eight-hour drive was worth an amazing ski day. I get it. I grew up in Bend, Oregon and am accustomed to driving maybe 20 minutes to reach the resort. I moved to Denver in September, and this is my first full season of skiing here, and I do think it’s ridiculous that you have to drive two hours each way to go skiing. But I’ve accepted it, and the steep terrain and options that you have at Colorado resorts is pretty hard to beat.

For this specific weekend, I think that getting two days of skiing—one of which was an amazing powder day—and spending the entire weekend with close friends made it worth the awful drive. Trust me—I don’t want to drive eight hours every weekend to ski.

As told to Frederick Dreier.