Holiday drivers undeterred by prices at pump

A gallon of gas at Denver area pumps is running around $1.13 more than it did a year ago, but that won’t stop a surge of motorists from driving to farflung destinations over Memorial Day, according to travel experts.

“The snow is melting, and people will be heading for the hills,” said Carly Holbrook, a spokesperson for the Colorado Tourism Office.

Anyone not ready to wrap up the ski season can still find a 52-inch base at nearby Arapahoe Basin — but she says scenic spots at lower elevations will lure most travelers.

That includes software developer Ben Kadlec of Boulder and his wife Sara, who are caravanning with eight friends and their mountain bikes to Penitente Canyon west of the San Luis Valley — a longer drive than the crew chose last Memorial Day near Leadville, but lower and warmer, too.

The canyon (find it at DelNorteTrails.com) has 21 miles of routes through federal land, ranging from easy kid stuff to technical boulder jumping. Del Norte is 215 miles from Denver — a $60 round trip at the typical $4.15 per gallon price that Patrick De Haan, chief analyst at GasBuddy.com, forecasts for Denver.

“It’s a little bit more, but gas prices won’t keep us from doing it,” said Kadlec.

At the canyon, his group (they’re bringing two vehicles including a dollar-guzzling diesel van) will search for a dispersed camping site (the reserved ones are gone) and will cook out to keep things affordable.

Holbrook of Colorado Tourism says western destinations are loaded with scenery that outweigh the price of midgrade. Those include 12 trail miles west of Grand Junction on the Fruita Lunch Loop, just outside of Colorado National Monument, with scenery to match anything she used to ride at Moab. Fruita also saves 215 round trip miles ($30) over the trip to Utah.

Pushing farther, at 395 miles ($109 round trip) Mesa Verde National Park has 600 sites where over a 750-year span ancestral Pueblo people fashioned cliff dwellings on a plateau at 8,000 feet, with views into four states. The park still has reservations left for campsites (from $38) and a couple of hotel rooms (from $186), said Mike Schneider with Aramark, park concessionaire.

Mesa Verde, which stayed open even during the summer 2020 shutdown, is a place where on this moonless weekend you’ll get a skyful of the Milky Way — certified as one of only 12 national parks rated as Dark Sky Parks.

Another is Great Sand Dunes (238 miles, $66 round trip), where in late spring the park’s Medano Creek offers a beach experience, with enough water to handle floaties. Visitors need to bring their own, but you can rent a sandboard for a dune-riding experience for $20 just outside the park entrance, says Mitchell Deckert at the Oasis Store.

Weekend travel is forecast to be up around 8% nationally from a year ago, according to AAA — still around 7% short of prepandemic totals in 2019. But Colorado Tourism is already sensing rising summer demand.

“This time of year is so beautiful,” says Holbrook. “We’re hearing from destinations that everyone is gearing up.”