Yesterday I headed out for Denver around 6:30am. I was on the fence as whether to go or not, as I wasn’t sure about the weather. I thought I could get down and up and beat the snow, if there was going to be any. The drive down wasn’t too bad. Vail Pass was the worst but then it was fine. I made it to the bank by 8:40 and was back on the road ten minutes later, feeling good. I stopped at Tom’s to pick up Ty’s birthday card and was back on the road by 9:20. All was good until a few miles from the tunnel. That’s where it slowed down and the snow picked up
It took me 15 minutes or so to get through and as I was driving down towards Silverthorne, Ty called and said Vail Pass was closed. I looked on Waze and it seemed open, so I also called Lori. She too said it looked closed. So, I stopped at Whole Foods to pick up Ty’s cake, (even though he doesn’t like cake), and then headed back out. Things were fine until about a half a mile from Copper Mountain, where the highway was indeed closed. I inched my way up between semis who were putting on chains. Lots of people got off and headed up to Leadville to go around. This adds a good half hour to the trip but also goes up over 10,000 feet in elevation. Seeing how it was snowing where I was, I decided to stay put, as I knew if it was snowing like it was where I was, it would only be worse 2000 feet higher. More on that later, but let’s just say, I was right.
The highway had been closed since 9am for snow and avalanche mitigation. I sat and made calls for about 45 minutes and then I saw the plows line up behind a State Patrol and knew we would be moving soon. Sure enough, a few minutes later, off they went. I quickly pulled out and passed 4 or 5 semis and ended up 2 cars behind the State Patrol that was pacing the caravan of cars and trucks, behind the snowplows. This worked fine and we made it over the pass going about 30 miles an hour. At the bottom, on the west side, the plows pulled off to head back up the other side, which was still closed, and it was clear highway ahead. All the plows must have been on the Pass though, as the highway was 6 inches deep with fresh powder. My truck sailed through though and off I went. I stopped at Hovey for some food and ran into James and Addy. Then it was 30 minutes more until home. I told Lori about the highway not being plowed in town, and she said there were lots of jack-knifed semis up in Leadville from where everyone tried to go around. That explained it.
Lori rushed home around 4:30 and then we turned around and headed back to Vail in two cars, for dinner at Mountain Standard. It was snowing hard and tenuous at best. Chandler, Ty’s manager, husband is the head chef there, so they got us in. We had a nice dinner with Ty and Vinny who drove up from Denver and was about an hour behind me. They’ve been friends since second grade. After dinner, we drove home and around 10, Ty had a few more buddies come over that couldn’t get out of town to go back to school. They’ll try to leave today. They stayed until about 1:30am hanging out downstairs.
Both boys are obviously sleeping now but are heading to the mountain today to go snowboarding. We’ll see if Vinny can get back to Denver later today. It’s still snowing right now and another 3 inches or so came down last night.
I have a call today at 10 and then some more computer work. Lori is already working, and we’ll probably go to the gym around 11.
The storm is moving out around 5pm and then the weather looks clear for about a week. It’s pretty outside and will be in the mid 30’s today. That’s it, time to get moving, guess I’ll go shovel, God Bless.
Here’s Ty and Vinny!
