Colorado Highway 82 over Independence Pass, the high mountain road between Aspen and Twin Lakes, will close at 8 a.m. on Saturday, October 31, ahead of an incoming winter storm, the Colorado Department of Transportation (CDOT) has announced. CDOT said it is making the safety closure in partnership with the Colorado Avalanche Information Center because forecasted snow accumulation and strong winds are expected to make travel across the pass hazardous.

Source: Colorado Department of Transportation (official release, via EIN Presswire)

The closure covers the pass in Lake and Pitkin counties. On the west side, Highway 82 will be closed at approximately Lincoln Creek Road, at Mile Point 51.1, and on the east side it will be closed near Graham Gulch, at Mile Point 68.5, CDOT said. This is a safety closure, not yet a final decision on the season: CDOT said conditions will be re-evaluated once the storms pass to determine whether the road can reopen, or whether it will enter its annual winter shutdown.

Why now: the storm coming into the high country

The pass crosses the Continental Divide through the Sawatch Range at 12,095 feet — country covered by the winter alerts the National Weather Service has posted for Colorado's mountains for Sunday into Monday. The Weather Service office in Grand Junction has a Winter Weather Advisory in place from noon Sunday to 6 p.m. MST Monday for areas above 10,000 feet, including the Gore and Elk Mountains and the West Elk and Sawatch Mountains, with total snow of 5 to 10 inches expected, locally higher amounts possible, and winds gusting to 35 mph. Aspen and Snowmass are among the places listed in the advisory zones.

Source: National Weather Service advisories for Colorado, reported by Traveling Lifestyle

The forecast for Pitkin County, on the Aspen side of the pass, points the same way: snow is expected on Sunday, November 1, with a 90 percent chance of precipitation and about 9.4 centimetres (about 3.7 inches) of snow, followed by more snow on Monday, November 2, at a 70 percent chance and about 5.7 centimetres (about 2.2 inches). Saturday itself is forecast mostly cloudy with a high near 1°C — it is the system arriving behind it that CDOT is closing the road ahead of.

Source: The Weather Company (weather.com), Pitkin County 10-day forecast

The road that is closing

Independence Pass is a Colorado Scenic and Historic Byway maintained by CDOT, and at 12,095 feet it is the highest paved state highway in Colorado. The summit sits 18 miles west of Twin Lakes and 19 miles east of Aspen, and the full route between Twin Lakes and Aspen runs about 32 miles through the San Isabel and White River National Forests. When the pass is open, CDOT crews monitor it daily from 7 a.m. to 5 p.m. In winter, heavy snowfall at the highest elevations makes travel impossible, and the road is not plowed through the season because of extreme avalanche danger on the route.

Source: CDOT-verified Independence Pass road conditions and facts

A late-October or November closure is the pass's normal rhythm, not an exception. CDOT says the pass typically closes between late October and mid-November for the winter season. In the past decade, the latest closures came in 2016, 2017 and 2025, when the pass closed on November 17, and the earliest closure was October 25, 2021. An October 31 closure therefore sits inside the usual window — what is still undecided is whether this year's road gets a brief reopening first, as has happened in some past years, or goes straight into its winter shutdown.

For truckers and long vehicles: this was never the freight route

Commercial drivers should note that Independence Pass is not a through freight route even in summer: vehicles longer than 35 feet are prohibited on the pass, and a traction law is in effect on Colorado mountain roads from September 1 to May 31, under which passenger vehicles need all-wheel or four-wheel drive with adequate tread, or chains. With the pass closed, all traffic for Aspen — cars, delivery vehicles and trucks alike — uses the year-round Interstate 70 route through Glenwood Canyon to Glenwood Springs, then Highway 82 south into Aspen. There is no other mountain-pass alternative to Aspen in winter.

Aspen itself stays open and reachable all winter on that I-70 route; it is only the direct Twin Lakes crossing that shuts. Twin Lakes, on the east side in Lake County, likewise remains reachable from the Leadville side, but drivers can no longer cross between the two communities over the pass until spring.

What happens next: CDOT and the Avalanche Information Center will re-evaluate conditions after this storm system passes and decide whether a reopening is safe, or whether the October 31 closure becomes the seasonal winter shutdown. If the pass stays closed for the season, CDOT typically reopens it in spring in the week before the Memorial Day holiday weekend, weather permitting and after crews have evaluated the roadway for safety. Awaaz Punjab will update this story when CDOT announces the re-evaluation decision.