As local gas prices soar, fumes of uncertainty swirl around summer travel season in Vail

Gas station owners and operators up and down the Eagle River Valley are reluctantly raising prices at the pump as the war in Iran marks its second month, and there is growing uncertainty about how high prices will climb heading into the summer travel months.

“I hope we don’t reach the $6 mark on the regular gas. That’s just what we’re hoping,” Vail Conoco manager Randy Viater said. The price for a gallon of regular unleaded was $4.79 at his station on South Frontage Road in Vail on Tuesday.

Nationally, regular unleaded hit $4.18 on Tuesday, the highest it’s been since Russia’s attack on Ukraine in April of 2022. In Colorado, according to AAA motor club, the statewide average was $4.12 on Tuesday.

It’s the offseason following a particularly bad ski season in Vail, where snowpack levels hit record lows, so it’s hard to say how much high gas prices will impact summer drive-market tourism, Viater added, but he suspects more people will hit the highways than choose to fly.

“It’s a toss-up, but in the long run, I think it’s probably going to be the road travel, because in some places, I heard somewhere (gas was still) $3.33,” Viater said. In fact, just to the south in Oklahoma and Texas — a big market for Colorado visitors — gas was still under $4 a gallon.

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Told the national average hit $4.18, Viater said the higher cost of doing business in Vail is what keeps the ski town one of the pricier places in the state to fill up, although basically his store does not set the price.

“It’s when that fuel truck comes up (that the price is set); you got to pay them to come up,” Viater said. “And that’s how that works. They bring us 8,000 gallons a shot.”

Israel and the United States attacked Iran on Feb. 28. The day before, on Feb. 27, gas was selling nationally for $2.98 a gallon. With 20% of the world’s oil now trapped behind the war-ravaged Strait of Hormuz, that’s a 40% increase in gas prices in just two months. Diesel was $3.72 per gallon nationally before the war and now it’s going for $5.37 a gallon — a 44% increase.

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Viater said he has to sell it for even more than that.

“Yeah, I hate to say it, but we’re at $5.69 (for diesel), and it might have to go up. I’m trying not to,” Viater said of goods coming in on semi-tractor trailers that all run on diesel. “It’s got to be shipped in. It ain’t like it just appears on the shelf.”

Not that he’s running a truck stop, but Viater said he does see some big rigs on his side of the interstate away from the other two gas stations in West Vail that are on North Frontage Road.

“We have more room for bigger stuff, trailers, campers, what have you,” Viater said. “I have semis come in here. There’s just no room for error over there. Some of those drivers, they take Highway 50 most of the time, and then they come up this way and there’s no fuel stops. So emergency-wise, they have to come in and they call and I say, ‘I’ll accommodate you, get you in here so we can get you some diesel.'”

Viater said he’s still surprised by what some of his down-valley competitors are selling gas for, pointing out they’re only a little more than the Colorado average of $4.12 a gallon.

“That’s what they’re selling it for like in Eagle, $4.15, $4.19,” Viater said. “And it’s like, how can you guys do that? It’s just they’re like making nothing on it. So I don’t know if they feel bad for the consumer.” But he also points out big corporate operators can undercut locally owned stations.

“There’s a million Mavericks. That’s why they can do that. We understand that,” Viater said. “There’s not a million Conocos and maybe a few more Shells, but all this private stuff up here we have to abide by our numbers for what we pay.”

Sinclair Gas Station Eagle owner Ed Oyler said people should try to shop local even when it comes to buying gas. His station was selling a gallon of regular unleaded for $4.39 on Tuesday.

“It’s funny, people will drive miles to save a few pennies,” Oyler said. “I’m not going to throw Costco under the bus, but they buy in big volumes and they market. They don’t need to market at a high price because they have a low overhead. All they have is tanks. And it’s hard for us small guys to compete. And when you buy your gas there, (the money) goes out (of town).”

Oyler, who’s been in business in Eagle for more than 40 years, said stations used to mark increases or decreases in a few pennies a day here and there, but now prices are jumping at rates that don’t seem connected to reality.

“What do they say, we get 20% of our oil from that strait down there we are having the war around? And they go, ‘Oh, we’re going to make a deal.’ And then the barrel price goes down and the stocks go up, and then we don’t make a deal and then it goes back up. It doesn’t make sense,” Oyler said. The jump in diesel is even more impactful, he added.

“We just go along with what they sell the fuel to us for, but it’s trying times when people are filling up diesels way high and everything drives on diesel. I mean, every pack of gum, the groceries. That’s gone up more than gasoline,” Oyler said. “It sure has hurt the economy, as far as our nation runs on fuel.”

Asked if he thought high prices would impact the tourism market this summer, Oyler said it may already be taking a toll.

“I went to Moab this weekend and usually it’s crazy busy,” he said. “And mind you, it was busy, but I did see, from talking to locals down there, that it was quite a bit less. They were thinking it was the price of fuel.”

Edwards Station COO Chris Dudar said he thinks the crisis in the Middle East is having an even more dramatic impact on the price of jet fuel.

“People say there’s an equation, ‘Well, if gas is high, I’m going to fly.'” Dudar said. “But the reality is the price of flights are going way up too. So it’s sort of a complicated dynamic.”

With extensive electric vehicle charging at his station in Edwards, which was selling a gallon of regular unleaded for $4.45 on Tuesday, there may be more business from people trading in their gas-powered vehicles for EVs. “I think they’ll take a second look. I think that it will keep the dialogue going,” Dudar said. He sees how the whole global energy market is interconnected.

“I heard one thing that I really liked lately about sort of the whole market,” Dudar said. “The market is like a giant bathtub. And where it comes from is a bunch of spigots. So there’s a bunch of spigots and there’s a bunch of drains. So the market is complex because there’s so many things feeding into it and there’s so many things drawing out of it.”

And that leaves motorists increasingly drawing out of their wallet to pay for more expensive gas.