I-70 shutdown takes toll on ski areas

By Joyzelle Davis, Rocky Mountain News (Contact)

Published December 31, 2007 at 1:54 p.m.
Updated December 31, 2007 at 4:45 p.m.

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On a sunny day with four inches of fresh powder on the slopes, Justin Bontrager usually can count on a steady stream of customers renting ski equipment.

But he spent much of Monday instead fielding inquiries from stranded Winter Park tourists wondering if he could recommend a way to Denver that didn't involve Interstate 70.

"Our volume is about half of what it would normally be," said Bontrager, store manager of Grand Sport Shop in Winter Park.

The I-70 shutdown was just what ski resorts dread — a road closure on New Year's Eve day, a time when skiers from near and far head to the slopes.

Loveland Ski Area, a favorite of Front Range skiers, shuttered all of its slopes for the first time in four years, while other resorts struggled with accommodating stranded tourists.

Copper Mountain Ski Resort opened its conference center space to give guests a warm refuge as they waited out the road closure, said spokesman David Roth.

"We're doing the best we can to make sure they're comfortable, and they understand that it's not Copper Mountain that's closing the roads," he said.

While the few skiers stuck either on purpose or not at Summit County resorts Monday did have wide open trails, the wind buffeted many slopes.

Copper posted on its Web site that the skiing is "great" but "you're going to want to be wearing a neck gaiter or a balaclava, and bring your low-light goggles" to combat the wind gusts.

Loveland closed for the first time since 2003, when an avalanche knocked out power to its ski lifts. The Eisenhower Tunnel-adjacent ski mountain doesn't have lodging on site, so all skiers and employees leave at the end of the day. Because the I-70 closure was announced on Sunday evening, workers weren't able to return to work on Monday to open Loveland's lifts, said spokeswoman Kathryn Johnson.

"The upside is that no one is stranded," she said. "This happens once every few years. It's just the way it goes."

The closure threw a wrench into many of the resorts' planned New Year's Eve celebrations, postponing Winter Park's Jingle Rails pro and emerging pro rider competition until today. As of Monday afternoon, Copper Mountain wasn't sure if any of the bands, jugglers or other performers for its Disco Mountain celebration would be able to make it in time.

Some stranded skiers, however, decided to make the best of the situation and revel in another day of unexpected slope shredding.

"It sounded like they were going to open (I-70) in the morning, so we thought we'd ski as many runs as we could and then go back," said Ed Baylosos, a Livermore, Calif., resident who travelled to Vail on Sunday to visit his brother and ski.

While the road closure scuttled Baylosos' plans to return Monday morning, "there's plenty of fun to be had up here."

davisj@RockyMountainNews.com or 303-954-2514. Tom Boyd contributed to this report.

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