VAIL — On Wednesday, David Livingston and three friends skipped work to drive up from Denver to ski at Vail.

As it ended up, Denver got more of a powder day. Livingston wasn’t too eager to talk about the irony.

“Are you trying to make us feel bad?” he joked.

Actually, the skiing was quite good at Vail, with 3 or 4 inches of fresh snow, Livingston said. Still, last he had heard Wednesday afternoon, Denver had gotten 8 inches.

The ride home was to be their next obstacle.

“My son checked the Internet and said it’s doable,” said Schuyler Grey, one of Livingston’s ski buddies.

The blizzard that was socking Denver on Wednesday largely missed Vail. The town was expected to get 1 to 4 inches through Wednesday night, National Weather Service meteorologist Ellen Heffernan said. Vail Mountain reported 3 inches Wednesday morning.

Shopping problems

Meanwhile, the National Weather Service said Denver could get up to 20 inches of snow. Up to 30 inches was expected near the Palmer Divide, about 30 miles south of Denver.

Two feet could fall in the foothills west of Denver and up to 3 feet was expected in northern Colorado. Telluride reported 15 inches Wednesday morning, and Eldora near Nederland reported 14 inches.

Gov. Bill Owens declared a state of emergency and activated the National Guard in case it was needed to rescue stranded motorists.

By mid-afternoon, Denver, Colorado Springs and other cities along the Rocky Mountain Front Range were becoming ghost towns, with cars and SUVs slipping, sliding and crawling through thick snow toward the suburbs.

Major malls closed early, just five days before Christmas. At Flatiron Crossing mall in the north Denver area, managers sent customers home at mid-afternoon after snow drifts reached about 2 feet.

“There were lots of people there but they were returning to their cars in the parking lot and finding themselves stuck,” mall spokeswoman Allison Johnson said.

Trucker Steve Kirkegard, stranded in Limon with a load of fertilizer, said the rush to get people and goods to their destinations before the holidays compounded the frustration of being idled.

“Some people are a long way from home, and when commerce is impacted, it impacts personal lives, too. You can kind of sense a little more frustration and anxiety about that,” said Kirkegard, 36, of Billings, Mont.

‘Wonderful publicity’

Colorado Mountain Express stopped running its airport shuttles to and from Denver at 10:40 a.m., said Tom Ball, executive vice president.

One reason was the number of flights that were canceled. United Airlines canceled more than 630 flights into and out of the airport. Frontier canceled up to 190.

The other reason was the road conditions. Ball cited snowfall of between 6 and 12 inches between Westminster and Evergreen.

“It’s a classic conversation,” he said. “It doesn’t look that bad here. It’s not — until you get to Georgetown.”

But getting the snow just before the busy travel days of Saturday and Sunday — with Christmas on Monday — is really great timing, he said.

“In terms of the perfect opportunity to enjoy all of this snow and get all of this wonderful publicity, this is the time,” he said.

Rob LeVine, general manager of the Antlers, said he’s gotten a few calls from guests who said they haven’t been able to get to Vail. But that’s been offset by guests who aren’t able to leave, he said.

“Happily, those things are matching up fairly well,” he said.

Snow day for VR

Some local restaurants reported that their deliveries were delayed. At the Minturn Country Club, today’s deliveries of food were not expected to arrive, but they were expected to come Friday, said Manager T.J. Ricci.

Steve Kaufman, owner of the Tap Room in Vail Village, said he got all of his deliveries — including plenty of liquor — just before the snowstorm hit.

“We’re all good,” he said.

I-70 was closed for 150 miles from just east of Denver to the Kansas border. I-25 was closed from south of Denver to the New Mexico border, about 190 miles.

The State Patrol reported a rash of collisions, some involving several vehicles, but no fatalities.

At Vail Resorts’ corporate headquarters in Broomfield, which was recently relocated from Avon, employees were experiencing something different — a snow day. Employees were sent home at noon, and their Christmas party was canceled. The company also postponed its annual meeting for shareholders, scheduled for today.

“The whole concept of the snow day is really lost on us down here because a snow day to us means 8 inches or more and you ski a few runs before going into the office,” said Kelly Ladyga, spokeswoman for the company, who said the area had gotten about a foot of snow by Wednesday afternoon.

But the Denver snow is great publicity for Vail, even if Vail isn’t getting the snow, Ladyga said.

“It really doesn’t matter how many inches of snow the ski resorts are getting,” she said. “All that people see across the country are images of a major blizzard in Colorado.”



The Associated Press contributed to this report.