Memorial Day travelers hoping for a long, scenic drive through the Rockies may have to re-route their plans.
Independence Pass, the popular highway that connects Aspen to Twin Lakes and passes beneath four fourteeners, will remain closed through Memorial Day weekend. Its anticipated opening date has been pushed back to June 1.
The pass typically closes on Nov. 7 and “almost always” opens the Thursday before Memorial Day weekend, according to the Colorado Department of Transportation’s website. The highway closed a week early this past winter in anticipation of a storm. The last time Colorado 82 wasn’t open by Memorial Day was in 2020, after several counties requested it stay closed to limit travel during the COVID-19 pandemic.
The pass, which tops out at 12,095 feet, is closed between Tagert Lake Road (5 miles east of Aspen) and Carlton Tunnel Road (13 miles west of Twin Lakes).
The pass received 36 inches of snow from May 9-12, delaying the avalanche mitigation required before clearing crews can work on the road, CDOT spokesperson Elise Thatcher said. On May 14 avalanche crews “turkey bombed” the pass, dropping more than 50 bombs shaped like Thanksgiving turkeys onto thick cornices that formed above the road.
The next phase of maintenance can include removing rocks, rebuilding guardrails and filling cracks created during freeze-thaw cycles.
Independence Pass is a quintessential scenic byway, climbing from the lush, cool evergreens of a montane ecosystem, passing through the subalpine and peaking in the windblown tundra of Colorado alpine. The pass also crosses three federally designated wilderness areas — Hunter-Fryingpan, Collegiate Peaks and Mount Massive — and has several campgrounds and trailheads. The campgrounds on the east side of the pass, including Parry Peak, Twin Peaks and Twin Lakes, are also typically open to the public by Memorial Day weekend, according to the Independence Pass Foundation. West-side campgrounds don’t open until June.
Over the past three years, CDOT tracked around 1,400 cars traveling over the pass daily.
Other popular mountain passes are also closed at the time of writing, including Guanella Pass, which climbs from Georgetown to a summit near the base of Mount Bierstadt, and Trail Ridge Road, which winds through Rocky Mountain National Park and tops out at 12,183 feet.
Rocky Mountain National Park spokesperson Kyle Patterson on Wednesday morning said workers have been attempting to clear snow from the highest continuous paved road in the U.S. since mid-April. “Due to ongoing and forecasted winter weather conditions at higher elevations in Rocky Mountain National Park, Trail Ridge Road will not be opening this holiday weekend,” she said in an email.
“May storms with significant winds at higher elevations have hampered snow plowing operations,” she wrote. “Plow operators this week have encountered additional snow accumulation, significant wind resulting in deep snow drifts, freezing cold temperatures and ice.”
Colorado 5 to the 14,130-foot summit of Mount Blue Sky is also closed, but is slated to open on Monday, May 27.
