The High Country was a refuge this weekend from record-high temperatures on the Front Range.
Nearly 135,000 vehicles passed through the Eisenhower-Johnson tunnels this weekend, July 24-26, as Denver and surrounding cities suffered multiple days in the triple digits.
On Sunday, July 26, Denver hit 103 degrees Fahrenheit, breaking a record from 1910. The Denver Post reports at least 10 other Front Range cities met or broke heat records.
Travelers were cooling off by about 10 degrees for every 1,000 vertical feet they climbed on the I-70 corridor. Summit County on Sunday was pleasantly mild with daytime temps in the 70s and, when the afternoon rain arrived, into the 60s.
This weekend was the busiest in a month and fourth busiest of the year on the I-70 mountain corridor, behind a pair of June weekends and the final weekend of February.
The corridor has been creeping back to life since hitting a recent low during the July Fourth holiday weekend. Traffic this weekend was 13% busier than that weekend (134,655 vs. 118,993 cars) and not even 1% busier than the previous weekend, July 17-19 (134,655 vs. 133,622 cars).
Looking back on the entire month July just barely hangs onto its crown as the busiest of the year with 518,854 vehicles in 12 days on weekends only, beating June by fewer than 4,000 vehicles. July 2025 was considerably busier with 560,900 vehicles in four weekends.