Cloggedartery: the drive up I-70 grows more agonizing for front range skiers every year, but the obstacles of money and mountains aren't budging

ColoradoBiz, March, 2006 by Allen Best

Metro Denver skiers bent on missing the Saturday madness get on the road no later than 6 a.m. Mere minutes matter. Fifteen, 30 minutes later and Interstate 70 west of Denver coagulates into a vexatious syrup of old-beater Toyotas, silvery Yukons and shiny black Excursions all reduced to a crawl as three lanes of traffic merge into two atop Floyd Hill. Good morning, Ski Country--commuter style.

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Descending into the canyon of Clear Creek, the convoy is a herky-jerky dance full of false hopes, now speeding up, then slowing down on its way through the Twin Tunnels and then grunting through Idaho Springs. Bumper-to-bumper traffic there has expanded through the years, now lasting from 6:30 a.m. until 10 a.m., sometimes later, with a strong surge also occurring on Friday evenings. Traffic thins slightly as cars peel off for Winter Park, but it's still a grind up Georgetown Hill, the procession stuttering through the portal to paradise that, on this Saturday, most any Saturday in winter, becomes a plodding purgatory, the exhilaration of a day in the mountains dulled by the aggravation of getting there.

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The return trip, especially on Sunday nights, is no better, with weather you'd hardly think worthy to comment on at work the next morning still causing the parade to degenerate into a four- or five-hour slog back to the city.

Many Colorado skiers--and many more are joining them weekend after weekend--have already said to their car mates: "You know, I'm just not sure it's worth it."

Access to the mountain playground that is central Colorado has always been one of the perks of living and working in Denver, a weekend trip to go skiing always a delight anticipated even in the heat of late summer at the Gart's Sniagrab sale. Yet the aggravation of getting there nowadays is, at least anecdotally, causing more and more people to leave the skis in the garage. And this provokes a basic question: If congestion on I-70 makes day tripping to the mountains as annoying as the commute to work, what differentiates Denver from Cleveland, Kansas City or Amarillo? Does not this congestion represent a threat to the business expansion of the Colorado Front Range and, perhaps, imperil even the existing prosperity?

"I don't think it is yet, but that day is coming sooner rather than later," says Tom Clark, executive vice president for the Metro Denver Economic Development Corp., when asked about the threat to business. More narrowly, it's hard to argue with a straight face that the death of the day skier is imminent. Colorado's ski industry this winter will almost certainly smash the decade-old barrier of 12 million snow-rider visits, and may well hurtle past the 13 million mark. Day skiers from the Front Range are part of that surge. If I-70 congestion is stopping day skiers, it's only in the spirit of what Yogi Berra once said: "Nobody goes there anymore. It's too crowded." But the crowding is provoking changes. More people are going up Thursday night, Friday night or even Saturday evening, returning on Monday mornings or other non-peak times. Friday is the second-busiest day of the week at the Vail parking garages, second only to Saturday.

A good many of these non-peak travelers are also what the ski industry now identifies as Colorado destination visitors. They rent hotel rooms or condos or, more commonly, own vacation homes themselves. It's a large and growing market segment. Research by Boulder-based RRC Associates finds that day skiers from the Front Range--defined here by Fort Collins and Greeley on the north and Pueblo on the south--are responsible for 21 percent of skier visits in Clear Creek, Grand, Summit and Eagle counties, which is where the Winter Park, Loveland, Breckenridge, and Vail ski resorts and six others are located. In turn, the Colorado destination skier, who typically spends three nights at a resort, now is responsible for 11 percent of skier visits among these resorts. There has always been some of this. While many may think of second-home owners as people from New York City, in fact metro Denver is the first home for the largest share of vacation homes in Vail and most other nearby resorts. While data are scarce, anecdotal reports suggest the I-70 traffic is nudging people into buying mountain real estate.

I-70 congestion is also inhibiting skier visits.

"I would say that there are times that the traffic problems on I-70 do hurt us," agrees Alan Henceroth, the chief operating officer at Arapahoe Basin, where a majority of skiers are day-trippers. Roger McCarthy, the chief operating officer for Breckenridge and Key-stone, agrees. "For the person who cannot afford two places, it definitely has to place a damper on their skiing," he says.

But McCarthy sees a more troubling prospect, a threat to Colorado's destination business. "I was in Utah a year ago and heard somebody in a lift line in Park City say, 'We don't go to Colorado anymore, because it's too much of a hassle to get in and out.'" Park City is located 30 mostly uncongested miles west of Salt Lake City, 45 minutes from the airport. While Summit County alone does more skier days than all of Utah, the Beehive State aims to change that. I-70 remains a critical component for Colorado's business in destination skiers. Even if Eagle County Airport and other regional landing strips are playing an increasingly important role as portals into ski country, Denver International Airport remains the biggee. Even at Vail, 50 percent of destination guests arrive via Denver. That destination business is lucrative for ski-resort communities--and, although less directly, for metropolitan Denver. Research conducted by RRC Associates during the 1996-'97 season, the latest year available, found an average daily expenditure of $49 for day skiers, including the locals in the resort communities, while the destination skiers--including Colorado overnighters--spent $189 per diem per capita. Added together, the Colorado ski industry's estimated impact on Colorado is $2.5 billion, not counting the industry's role in inducing purchase of vacation homes.