Serious Colorado skiers know that if you want to get to the mountains west of Denver in a timely manner on a weekend morning, you’d better be zipping past C-470 by 6 a.m.

Five years ago, that deadline was more like 6:30 a.m. But as more people move to the Front Range, Interstate 70 has become busier for longer periods of time.

“There are just [only] so many cars you can put in two lanes of highway,” said Steve Harelson, the Colorado Department of Transportation’s chief engineer. “The only way to get more people up there is to spread that peak out.”

During the winter of 2014-15, it took an average of 70 minutes to drive west from C-470 to Dillon during the 7 a.m. hour on a winter weekend. That’s according to travel data provided by CDOT. In the 2018-19 winter, that drive took 86 minutes — and the 6 a.m. drive was nearly as bad as the 7 a.m. period was five years before — 67 minutes.

Here’s what westbound travel times look like over every weekend going back to 2014-15.