I70 vs I80 in early December

Drove through a blizzard, blowing wind and white out conditions from Rock Springs to Cheyenne January 2014...my husband driving his truck and me following in my car behind. I could barely see the back of his truck.

I was terrified, semi-trucks jack knifed all over the place, car wrecks. Not many places to get off the road. We got behind a semi and went 25 mph for 8 hours. I thought my arms were going to fall off holding on to the steering wheel! I never want to drive through there again. The ruts were like driving on frozen railroad tracks.

Just when you think it will clear up you get blasted with wind and blowing snow across the freeway you cannot see the road. A miracle we made it.

The worst area on I-80 is from Rawlins to Cheyenne. The wind can get really bad.

I can only echo the good advice given so far.

As Thom said, timing is the critical element. Watch the storm forecasts and look for a window of opportunity where you can scoot through those problematic areas between storms.

Traveling between Texas and North Dakota over Christmas few years back I did just that, staying in Texas a few extra days to allow a storm system to pass through the Great Plains before I headed north. And I had no problems getting back to North Dakota. But I could surely see the evidence of the previous storm piled all along the roads on the way home.

Thanks Thom02099 I appreciate your insight into I80, sounds like we will travel I70. Being from MT I can deal with snow, it is the wind that I despise. Highway 2 in Montana has its fair share of wind and snow and I have driven it enough to know what to expect, hence my desire to minimize the snow/wind combination.

Grandpere wrote:
We are going to be traveling to MT in early December, and I am wondering if it is better to take I80 to I15 or I70 to I15 at that time of the year. Normally we travel to MT during the summer and go through SD on I90, but I am not taking chances on getting stopped by roads being closed because of wind and snow.

Toss the dice. It's all going to be dependent on the weather, not just on I-90.

I-80 across Wyoming? Not for the faint of heart during a snow storm sweeping in from the north. And the wind is...fierce...on a good day. On a bad day, it's downright dangerous. One of the scariest drives I've ever taken was returning from Laramie to Cheyenne in a blizzard, having the road being closed behind me, and going into "lockdown" in Cheyenne once we got there..for 3 days.

I-70 from the Plains to the Rockies, while further south, can experience the same winds and snow conditions as in Wyoming, though not quite as fierce. And getting through the mountains is really a matter of timing your trip between storms. And there will be storms. Regularly.

TIMING IS EVERYTHING! You could also experience no problems at all. WYODOT and CDOT work hard in their respective states to get their Interstates reopened. But at least for Colorado, December is one of our snowiest months.