06-April-2024 Travel mess across the Continental Divide

Today I headed from Salt Lake City to Denver. I’m flying to the east coast from Denver because I return late on Sunday 4/21 and I must report for another car sitting gig in Boulder (just down the road from Denver) on Monday 4/22. It was supposed to be an 8 hour drive … and turned out to be a drivers nightmare.

I left promptly at 9:00am and was only on the road for about 15 minutes when I saw a sign that warned that trucks are required to use chains on I80 east going over the pass to where the ski areas are …. 90% of the drive from SLC to Denver is via I80. Ugh. I could see as I turned into the pass that the clouds were dark and thick and low. It began snowing, and the higher I climbed the harder it snowed. Temps were in the high 20s and dropping and roads soon became snow-covered, then slushy and then icy. Traffic slowed to a crawl which I was thankful for. We plotted along at 5-8MPH up the sleep incline to the pass. Once over the pass, conditions were a little better - the snow let up and roads were clearer and I thought I had the worst if it behind me.

But that was only the beginning. About 45 minutes later I hit another pass and there were whiteout conditions. Sky was white, land white, road white and snowing coming down hard and fast. In the previous pass there was a ton of traffic - but they all apparently went to the ski resorts cause in this section of road I was alone, and without a car in front of me it was really hard to determine where the lanes were … everything was pure white. I crawled thru this next pass and finally made it to the downward side where the snow stopped and the visibility got way better. That sure was a “white knuckle hold the wheel and don’t make any sudden moves” section of road!

I stopped for gas with 2 hours to go and the wind was really strong - it was hard to open my car door and various things (trash cans, traffic cones, etc) were blowing around. Just after I got back on interstate 80 I saw a sign that said “highway closed ahead - wind gusts 40+MPH”. I had heard there were high wind warnings and hoped the closure might just be for high-profile vehicles - but no. Highway was closed and everyone was sent off. There are not many ways to get thru the mountains, and the detour would take me further north to connect with Interstste 25 - and would add 3 hours to my trip. Ugh!!!!

The detour was a 2-lane road (1 in either direction) thru the middle of nowhere in Wyoming. Like sooooo much nothing! It was getting very windy, and I noticed with they had wind fences next to the highway and permanent signs warning about high winds. It was definitely an effort to hold onto the steering wheel and stay in my lane. That’s when I saw my first overturned semi. There was a winter storm warning for that evening so I had to push on as weather was going to get worse, not better …. And I had a flight to catch in the morning.

Around 6pm I saw a 2nd overturned truck which appeared to be recent - no police, no cones or markings, so I called 911 to report it. A few minutes later I came to a stretch where I counted about 5 more overturned trucks in a 10-mile stretch. An overhead sign on the highway read “winds 75+MPH, I25 closed ahead”. Yup - the 2nd closed interstate of the day, This time my GPS said to go 1.5 miles and take a right onto some state road …. Which was a dirt road! I’m not kidding when I say I was in the middle of nowhere (about 40 miles north of Cheyenne WY). It was about 7pm and I just wanted to get to a paved road before darkness. The wind was howling and blowing dirt and tumbleweeds and debris over the road, my car getting pummeled with tumbleweeds. The air was an odd yellow color from all the dirt … and you could smell dirt in the car. Looked like Armageddon!

After 10 miles on various dirt/farm roads, I made it back to the highway and was able to parallel it on an access road and about 5 miles further I was able to get back on the highway headed south. Phew! By now it was just about getting dark, but I was only 50 miles or so from Denver so there started to be traffic and lights from other vehicles, and the winds didn’t seem as harsh. I pulled into my hotel at 8:57 …. 12 hours after leaving SLC with no food breaks - just 2 gas stops. I was so happy to get out of my car and stretch and have a snack and a glass of wine!

Not many pics today because I literally could not remove my hands from the steering wheel because driving was so perilous. Got a few pics from news clips but that’s about it. You’ll have to use your imagination for the rest. And I couldn’t resist looking up what wind speed would define a hurricane – looks like anything 75 miles or more qualifies as a category one. That’s some serious wind!

I’m heading to Sarasota in the morning so you likely won’t hear from me over the next couple of weeks until I’m back on the road.

Till then!