Rocky Mountain High

Have you ever seen the movie, “Snowbound” where the family makes a big error by getting off the highway and gets stranded in the snow for a few days? We are experiencing our version, albeit a little more populated and hopefully way shorter and less dramatic. As we were heading out of Denver on I-70, snow began to fall. We saw a sign advising that I-70 had been shut down around Vail due to accidents. There was no forecast of reopening the road, and it had already been closed for 3 hours. They gave another route as a possibility. As we approached the exit where the road was closed, there were plenty of people waiting alongside the road for the road to reopen. Here, we made the fatal decision. We decided to take the suggested detour, which was on two state roads through the mountains. The first road of 24 miles took us up and down a mountain reaching 11,315 feet in elevation. While it was slow going, it was manageable. We saw on my phone that they had now reopened I-70, but we decided to continue on our path.

Then, we turned on the second road of 32 miles heading back toward I-70, 24 miles down the interstate. The snow really began to pick up. This was much scarier. But, we made it to 10,500 ft, the peak of the road, and thought that we were home free. But, the road was twisty as we descended the mountain. Dave spun out once, which was terribly scary for us. Fortunately, the kids hardly noticed because they were so engrossed in their video games and DVD. We began hitting traffic about 11 miles to I-70. Then, it came to a halt. We sat there for 30 minutes or so. Matthew had to pee out the side of the car. Rachel and I had to trudge through the snow to a rock to go behind. Finally, traffic began coming in the other direction. We thought that was a good sign. Ten minutes or so later, we discovered that it was just traffic turning around because a couple semis had jack-knifed ahead. We turned around to head back the way we had come. Dave could barely see out of the windshield. Ice had formed on the wipers, and it was not coming off. It looked blizzard-like at times. It was now dark. We fortunately had a car in front of us that we followed very slowly for 20 miles. I finally got cell service, and I was checking the weather. It said we were in Leadville, CO. I checked for hotels and was ecstatic to see that there were a few choices, including a Super 8. We had already decided we were camping out in the parking lot of the Shell we saw when we turned. We had jackets and a couple sleeping bags. But, it wouldn’t have been fun with these near record low temperatures.

Let me just say that Dave has on shorts because the weather was so nice in Denver, just a couple hours away. We did not know this was coming. But, I am just thankful that we had gas, food we had bought at Target, the kids were preoccupied and super good, and that we made it out of that. We still have to get over the mountains in snowstorms tomorrow, but I think there will be a break in the morning and at least in the light of day, we can see the road. Lesson of the day - never, ever get off the highway in a snowstorm!