Rifle is no longer a drive-through zone; Loveland Pass reopens
Monday, June 1st, 2009The oil rigs are gone! Motels have vacancies! You can visit Rifle, CO, again!
Judy and I are on vacation in Utah at this moment, so we came through western Colorado the other day and I have to tell you it’s like night and day. A year ago I was advising that anyone considering coming to Colorado to ride not even think about spending a night in the area around Rifle. With gas prices over $4 a gallon, a drive along I-70 at night was like Christmas, with lighted drilling rigs dotting the landscape everywhere you looked. Of course, all those drilling crews had to sleep somewhere, and there was not a motel room available closer than Grand Junction.
What a difference a year makes. First off, we only saw two rigs along the way. The landscape is now dotted with what I take to be pumping stations, where the wells have been drilled and now the machinery is just doing its thing, extracting the oil or gas. You don’t need a lot of people to manage those.
Even more telling are the parking lots of the motels. They’re empty. We stopped at a rest area in Rulison and I asked the fellow tending the tourist center and he confirmed my assumption.
“They’ve all gone back to Oklahoma and Texas,” he said. He told me that at the height of the boom, a new La Quinta was built in Rifle and it was full immmediately. They built an addition and it was full immediately. They built another addition and it was full immediately. Then work was begun on a new Ramada Inn and another motel and work on both has been suspended.
On another note, it appears that Loveland Pass has reopened. I reported last week that it was closed, and the notice from CDOT said they would send word when it reopened. Searching their website it appeared that perhaps the pass was open again, although the main notice page had not been updated with that information.
With that in mind I was all eyes as we came past the turn-off to the pass the other day, and yes we saw traffic on that road. In fact, what we saw was three motorcycles coming down the pass. So now Colorado is truly open for the season.
Recent from the National Motocycle Examiner
Biker Quote for Today
Sometimes the fastest way to get there is to stop for the night.
