It’s a coincidence that I work for a company that makes IVR software and an IVR is one of my best friends during the ski season, but it’s true.
The I-70 corridor from Denver to the ski resorts west of the city is a nightmare on winter weekends. Thousands and thousands of skiers and snowboarders clog the route every Saturday and Sunday.
I-70 was built in 1961, way before everyone and their dog (including me) moved here from all over the country to live the mountain lifestyle. It’s mostly a two-lane highway on either side that winds up into and over the Rockies.
Now when I say ‘winds,’ I’m not kidding. The road is winding. And up and down. From Denver at a mile in elevation it goes up to Vail Pass at 10,662 feet. It also cuts through Loveland Pass with the Eisenhower Tunnel (the longest mountain tunnel in the Interstate Highway System) at 11,158 feet. It’s an engineering marvel, for sure.
But here’s the typical scenario:
Traffic is so heavy on the weekends that you should be on the road by 6 a.m. or earlier from Denver. At about 7 a.m., traffic starts building on Floyd Hill, the first big pitch up.
If you get caught, you can end up crawling over Floyd Hill. Then you can hit periods of slow to stopped traffic all the way to the resorts—Winter Park/Mary Jane, Loveland, Arapahoe Basin, Keystone, Copper, Vail, Beaver Creek, in that order.
On the way home, it’s the same deal. Either you leave the resorts by around 3 p.m. or you get stuck in the 4 p.m. to 6 p.m. “Death Zone” and you can have the same slow drive home you had on the way up.
And that’s without bad weather or accidents (which go hand in hand). While Denver sits on what’s basically a high altitude desert with very little precipitation (300 days of sun a year), the mountains are dramatically different. They’re high and cold, and they get a good amount of precipitation.
Which means wet, snowy, icy roads in the winter. On a fast, winding highway. It’s not a good combination. It can literally take four or five hours to get home sometimes—not exaggerating.
The only way to avoid that is by keeping tabs on the traffic. And the only way to do that while driving is by calling the Colorado Department of Transportation’s IVR system, which provides hourly updates if traffic is normal and more frequent updates when there’s an accident.
Like I said, it’s one of my best friends during the ski season. I have it on speed dial in my phone. Again, not joking.
