Went skiing for the day at Arapahoe Basin, one of the many downhill ski resorts located along Interstate 70 in Colorado. We were bracing ourselves for the brutal drive back this afternoon eastbound, and were pleasantly surprised that traffic flowed nicely. All this, after I geared myself up for bumper to bumper traffic, bringing extra water, snacks, and even reading material. Why the surprise? Well, I-70 is renowned for its horrendous traffic on just about any Sunday afternoon during ski season and again during the summer season of June, July and August. You see, all of the front range population seems to want to either go skiing or in summer escape the heat of the plains for the cooler temperatures of the mountains. Because the population keeps growing, the highways are suffering from the amount of people using them on the weekends to the point that traffic can literally be stop and go for 50 miles or more with delays of 1 1/2 hours on the busiest weekends.
Bryon and I found out about this first-hand right after we moved to Colorado. At that time, we were living in western Colorado in the Grand Junction area. We hadn’t even been living there a month, when he was invited to present at a conference in Boulder. Being newbies in the state, we had little knowledge of front range traffic and I-70, so we set out blithely on a Sunday afternoon in August expecting the drive to take us around four hours or so. As we drove through Silverthorne, sixty-seven miles from Denver, traffic began to slow. By the time we hit the Eisenhower tunnel a few miles later, it was practically at a standstill. Desperate for a way around the I-70 parking lot, I consulted our trusty Colorado map (I didn’t have an iPhone then). I saw a little road that looked like it connected the town of Winter Park to Rollinsville, where it picked up Highway 119 down to Boulder. We took the Highway 40 exit, up and over Berthoud Pass into Winter Park, looking for this mysterious road. After going back and forth several times through the town of Winter Park, we finally spotted a dirt road going to Rollins pass, and headed up.
I began to have my doubts as the road became more and more rutted and rough. At the time, we were driving in Bryon’s little Mazda 2-wheel drive hatchback, and I began to worry we were going to bottom out at any moment. As I was thinking maybe we should abandon this little adventure, we spied a sign, saying “Road closed ahead.” We turned around and headed all the way back down to Winter Park, back to the I-70 parking lot.
Not to be deterred, I went back to the map, and saw another road leading to Highway 119 from Idaho Springs. What I was looking at on the map was a major road called the Central City Parkway. What we ended up on was yet another dirt mining road locals called the “Oh my Gawd Road.” After winding up a steep canyon with preciptous drop-offs along the endless switchbacks, proceeding through the darkened ghost town of Russell Gulch, we finally hooked up with Highway 119 in the gambling haven of Black Hawk. In short, our leisurely drive of four hours to Boulder and turned into an epic 11-hour tour of Colorado’s historic dirt roads, ghost towns and casino havens.
But that trip was not a total loss, I learned a lot about Colorado’s history after our sojourn on these various roads, and even better became acquainted with my future home of Nederland that crazy night. But I also realized, maybe sometime it’s better to just prepare myself for the traffic and the delay and just stick with the plan.
