Presidents Day weekend storm led to 149 vehicle assists on I-70, drivers disregarding Loveland Pass closures
Over the holiday weekend, a vehicle also got stuck in an avalanche on Loveland Pass and an intoxicated driver fled from police onto a crowded and snowy I-70
Colorado Department of Transportation/Courtesy photo
A snowy Presidents Day weekend led to road closures, crashes and traffic jams throughout the Interstate 70 mountain corridor and Summit County as holiday travelers sought out fresh powder.
The two back-to-back storms that lasted from Thursday, Feb. 13, through Tuesday, Feb. 18, dropped feet of snow on the Colorado High Country, resulting in “extremely treacherous” driving conditions, Colorado Department of Transportation I-70 mountain corridor communications manager Austyn Dineen said.
Road conditions through the holiday weekend were especially bad between Frisco and the Eisenhower-Johnson Memorial Tunnels and on Vail Pass, Dineen said. Closures and slowdowns on I-70 occurred from Friday evening through Tuesday morning due to crashes, vehicle recoveries, winter maintenance operations and safety closures for adverse conditions, she said.
Interstate 70 was ‘jam-packed’ with traffic
Colorado State Patrol public information officer Sherri Mendez said troopers responded to 149 vehicle assists, 23 property damage crashes and three crashes that resulted in injury on I-70 between Friday and Tuesday.
Mountain Recovery owner Charlie Stubblefield said that this Presidents Day holiday was one of the busiest weekends he’s encountered in his company’s more than five years conducting towing operations along the I-70 corridor.
“The interstate has been jam-packed,” Stubblefield said. “We’ve been responding to a lot of vehicles spun out going up the mountain grades, whether that’s Vail Pass or the Eisenhower tunnel. That’s primarily been our problem because we’ve had heavy traffic volume coinciding with that snow.”
Because traffic on the interstate was so backed up over the holiday weekend, Stubblefield said that motorists were driving slow so there were very few major crashes along I-70, with most crashes being fender benders or slide-offs. But the “sitting duck” vehicles on the interstate made for “tedious” work for his tow operators, he said.
Several times, Stubblefield said he and his team had to use a smaller truck with lots of lights to “part the waters” so that the larger tow trucks could follow behind through the tightly-packed traffic.
“We really had to blaze a trail,” Stubblefield said. “It sometimes takes a half hour, sometimes an hour, sometimes 90 minutes just to get to (vehicle) casualties on the tunnel grade. That’s what is so tedious. We’re blazing a trail every single time.”
Stubblefield said that while the vast majority of vehicles on I-70 were equipped for the weather with adequate traction, it was typically the vehicles that did not have adequate traction that caused problems.
About half of the vehicle spinouts Mountain Recovery responded to over the weekend were commercial semitrailers while passenger vehicles accounted for the other half of spinouts, Stubblefield said. He said that a substantial portion of the passenger vehicles that his company towed were rental vehicles without adequate traction, including rental SUVs that only had two-wheel drive.
“It’s just a plain old joke,” Stubblefield said. “How is a rental car company giving people these vehicles? It’s just not OK.”
Colorado State Patrol could not immediately provide information about how many citations it wrote to drivers who violated the state’s commercial vehicle chain law or the passenger vehicle traction law. These laws require drivers to have adequate traction mechanisms for their vehicles, such as four- or all-wheel drive, chains or other traction tools for passenger vehicles.
“Vehicles without adequate traction (or) tire-tread depth exacerbated already difficult conditions when they became disabled due to their inability to gain traction on icy and snow-packed roads, resulting in spin-outs and slide-offs,” Dineen said. “Further, several major crashes occurred on Vail Pass and other areas along the corridor, slowing down traffic or halting it altogether. These combined factors made travel slow and difficult much of the weekend for motorists on I-70.”
Avalanches and other public safety incidents add to holiday traffic
On Friday night, as state troopers were already in the process of closing U.S. Highway 6 at Loveland Pass, an avalanche swept across the highway, taking a vehicle with it, Mendez said. The avalanche, which occurred in the Seven Sisters avalanche paths near Loveland Ski Area, was estimated to be 50 meters wide and 4 to 5 feet deep, she said.
Summit County Sheriff’s Office public affairs officer Sgt. Michael Schilling said that the driver caught in the avalanche was able to escape the vehicle uninjured. Schilling said the Sheriff’s Office flew a drone with thermal imaging to confirm that there were no other vehicles or people buried in the avalanche.
Following the avalanche, Loveland Pass remained closed through Sunday to prepare for winter maintenance operations after the natural slide, Dineen said. It closed again Monday afternoon and continued into Tuesday as transportation department teams evaluated the banks along the roadway and prepared for additional winter maintenance operations, she said.
Despite the closure, Schilling said that the Sheriff’s Office had “continuous issues with motorists getting around the gate and making an attempt to go up” Loveland Pass due to the closures on I-70.
Colorado Highway 9 at Hoosier Pass south of Breckenridge also closed for several hours over the weekend, including for three-hour period Friday evening due extreme weather and for about two hours just after midnight Tuesday due to a jackknifed semi, Dineen said. Other slowdowns on Hoosier Pass were caused by traffic having to alternate to get past disabled vehicles that were unable to get traction, she said.
Then, on Saturday, an intoxicated driver merged on I-70 while fleeing from police, creating a “highly dangerous situation” on the snowy, congested interstate and adding to the “holiday weekend chaos,” according to the Sheriff’s Office. The driver reportedly swerved through traffic and drove along the interstate shoulder, continuing to flee even after state troopers successfully deployed a tire-deflation device, until he was eventually stopped and arrested on multiple charges.
Around 9 a.m. Monday, an avalanche ripped through the Tenmile Canyon, where I-70 snakes through the mountains between Frisco and Copper, but it did not reach the highway, according to the Colorado Department of Transportation.
Tuesday morning saw additional closures as state transportation and avalanche officials safely triggered and cleared nine avalanche paths along the I-70 corridor near Silverthorne and the tunnels and Vail Pass.
“Drivers are advised to evaluate their necessity to travel during storms like this and, if they must travel, ensure their vehicles are winter ready,” Dineen said. “Travelers should exercise caution and check COTrip.org or the COTrip planner app frequently, as conditions and impacts continue to change rapidly.”
Closures lead to congestion on Summit County roadways
With I-70 backed up and Loveland Pass closed for most of the weekend, Schilling said that Summit County experienced heavy traffic and snowfall that had a “huge impact on the entire county.”
At times over the holiday weekend, traffic stacked up at the I-70 interchange at Silverthorne and stretched up Colorado Highway 9 into Dillon and onto U.S. Highway 9 toward Keystone, according to local police departments.
“The I-70 interchange, especially on the south Highway 6 side, continues to be a challenging point for the community, with limited space for eastbound I-70 travelers to move out of the way during extended closures or periods of heavy interstate traffic,” Silverthorne communications director Kristina Nayden said in a statement.
Traffic in Silverthorne peaked Friday evening, then again on the evenings of Sunday and Monday afternoon, as ski traffic made its way back down to Denver, Nayden said. But the Silverthorne Police Department has created a plan for these types of traffic events which helped, she said.
The Silverthorne Police Department was fully staffed, allowing the officers to respond to crashes and other calls for service while directing traffic to keep moving or park off Colorado Highway 9 and U.S. Highway 6, Nayden said. Silverthorne officers were able to maintain a presence at the I-70 interchange throughout the weekend and the police department’s plan helped with logistics related to how and where to park semitrailers, she said.
In Dillon, Police Chief Cale Osborn said that the stopped traffic affected the town’s snowplows’ ability to work as they got stuck in traffic. Osborn said that the town had significant backups and congestion issues every time I-70 closed. Over the holiday weekend, he said the police department made two arrests for driving under the influence and responded to 13 accidents, including four hit-and-runs.
On the opposite side of the county, Blue River Police Chief David Close said the holiday weekend went “fairly smooth” but there was a lot of traffic congestion. Close said that the town experienced its first crash on Colorado Highway 9 near Town Hall since the state transportation department lowered the speed limit there by 5 mph in September.
Throughout the “exceptionally snowy” holiday weekend, Summit County Sheriff’s Office deputies assisted with road closures, slide-offs and motor vehicle crashes, Schilling said.
“It was a big holiday weekend and one of our biggest snowstorms we’ve had in recent times,” Schilling said. “Just the combination of those two things made it a busy weekend for everybody.”
