Vail Pass and Interstate Seventy
Near Vail, Colorado
East of Vail the highway climbs to Vail Pass, one of the great engineering achievements of the American interstate system. The pass tops out at ten thousand six hundred and sixty two feet, high enough that weather can change in minutes and the road can close in a summer hailstorm. There was a paved two lane route over this crossing as far back as nineteen forty, but the modern freeway is a different animal.
Construction of Interstate Seventy over Vail Pass ran through the mid nineteen seventies and was finished in the late nineteen seventies. Rather than blast a single brutal roadbed, engineers split the eastbound and westbound lanes and threaded them separately down the mountainside on graceful curving viaducts, so the road bends with the terrain instead of fighting it. The Federal government lists this stretch among the true marvels of the entire interstate highway system, alongside the Eisenhower Tunnel and Glenwood Canyon.
One common point of confusion is worth clearing up. Vail Pass itself does not cross the Continental Divide. The freeway crosses the Divide later, to the east, deep inside the Eisenhower Tunnel.
Vail Pass simply carries you over a high shoulder of the Gore Range.
