The Day I-70 Shut Down: July 23, 2011

As I write this, it's Saturday evening (though I'll schedule the post for the morning) we're winding down from a long two days of three weddings between Breckenridge and Silverthorne.  Today, at the Mountain Thunder Lodge, we heard one of the band members frantically calling his bandmates to find out their location, as their progress was ground to a halt with both directions of I-70 being closed at the same time.  Now, I've lived in Breckenridge since 1996 and have never heard of this happening.  It's usually one or the other, but not both.  At the same time.

One thing we constantly tell brides who book us for Vail and Beaver Creek jobs is that the road could close at any time, especially during the winter.  Our mountain roads are actually very-well maintained, but there seems to be a lot of user error out there lately.  Regardless, you just have to consider whether or not your vendors need to travel to your event, and if so, how far and when do they plan to arrive.  Not only does this apply to Denver vendors traveling to the mountains, but to mountain vendors traveling over passes, or for any event not in their same town.

We left that job  to finish up another wedding in Breckenridge, hoping that all the band members would arrive safely and on time for our mutual client.  We are using Storify to show you how we warned you in an earlier post about the Art of Mountain Travel, and how you want to avoid peak travel times.  But, really, please check all the links I put in that post, and you might just save yourself a headache, and get a bonus hike in.  And then you can tell me how you used this info to maximize your time in local hills surrounding Summit County, Colorado.  That's what this blog is all about.