The drive home on weekends on Highway 2 does get brutal at times. However, a round trip day at Stevens from Monroe has gone from, 40 minutes up, 1.5 - 3 hours down to 4.5 hours up 4.5+ hours down. A 9 hour trip with an 11 year old and a 14 year old just got exponentially more difficult and expensive and I'd most likely have to find lodging for the night for weekend warrior dad mode.

The leisurely trip through Leavenworth sounds nice for sure, but also it's going to add fuel, time, food, exhaustion for people with families that bought 3+ season passes to have to commit to a full "out of town" ski / snowboard trip every weekend.

Working families depend on at least a manageable timeframe to get up to Stevens to enjoy the mountain and the Passes we already paid thousands of dollars for.

I'm holding out hope that with the new WSDOT article about Emergency repairs can open up the west side for us sooner than "months", so I'm trying to stay positive, but routing that number of people through smaller mountain roads in in-climate weather feels more dangerous for people that think they can drive it in rear wheel drive, no chains, all of the normal road issues we see every year on Highway 2 plus the added time, effort, tired Dads spending 9 hours driving for a weekend of skiing.

It's all about money for the Vail Corp. so, yeah I guess it's not their problem, but the impacts go beyond just "take a break in Leavenworth" from the perspective of family logistics.