Heading to the mountains for some Valentine's Day skiing? You're in luck with fresh snow on the horizon, but you might want to pack some patience alongside your parka. The coming days are poised to bring both blankets of snow and blankets of vehicles to Colorado's high country stretches, as holiday traffic collides with winter storm conditions. According to CDOT, hazardous conditions are expected from Thursday evening through Saturday morning, culminating in a snowy but busy President's Day weekend.
In the heavy snow crosshairs are southern mountain routes like US 550, including the precarious Red Mountain, Coal Bank, and Molas passes, where travel will be particularly treacherous. In anticipation of up to two inches of snowfall per hour, CDOT is enforcing an overnight safety closure on US 550 between Purgatory and Silverton starting at 8 p.m. Thursday, as detailed by CDOT. The passes are set to reopen by Friday, signaling a slight reprieve for Valentine's Day adventurers.
But the snow isn't discerning, it's slated to hit central zones like Grand Mesa and the Elk Range overnight, and by early Friday, northern regions will get their share just in time to complicate ski traffic. Conditions are expected to ease off as the system moves east on Saturday afternoon, but not before one last nudge of moderate snowfall hits the I-70 through Saturday afternoon's outbound exodus. The timing is hardly ideal; with President's Day weekend historically ranking as a traffic titan second only to Labor Day, nearly 180,804 vehicles are expected to migrate through the Eisenhower- Johnson Memorial Tunnels (EJMT), with peaks of activity on Friday and Monday.
