Silverthorne – When Thomas and Holly Celmer left their Tucson home on a cross-country camping trip 2 1/2 weeks ago, diesel fuel for their Chevy 2500 pickup cost $2.30 a gallon.
On Monday, as they prepared to tow their 35-foot gooseneck camper on the long journey home, they paid $2.99 a gallon at a Silverthorne filling station. It cost $65 for a fill up, plus a few bucks more to top off their generator.
“It was a lot cheaper when we left. What are you going to do?” Thomas Celmer said. “We’ve got to get back.”
Motorists felt the crunch at the fuel pumps this holiday weekend with record prices – averaging $3.06 for a gallon of regular unleaded in Colorado – but many were not deterred from traveling.
Gas prices, already soaring all summer, spiked after Hurricane Katrina damaged Gulf Coast oil refineries and distribution systems last week.
But a forecast from AAA auto club indicated that 34.5 million Americans would be on the move over the three-day Labor Day weekend.
In Colorado, travelers mostly seemed to accept the high price of gas as a cost of having fun.
“On Labor Day, everybody raises their prices,” said Mark Ransberger of Breckenridge, who towed his mid-size camper and a boat behind his Ford F-350 pickup to Green Mountain Reservoir for the weekend. “If we were living in Europe, we’d be paying $5 or $6 a gallon.”
Still, with his truck getting 10 miles a gallon, he said he doesn’t drive it unless he has to – and this weekend, he elected to stay closer to home.
Officials at Chatfield State Park had expected a huge crowd this weekend, and while the campsites were completely full, visitors had some breathing room, said assistant park manager Jim Smith.
“It’s comfortably crowded, but it’s not a big pain,” he said. “Picnicking and some of our day use was actually down slightly.
“With the price of gas, we were expecting some more day use, and I don’t know why that’s not the case,” Smith said. “I think people may be involved in other activities around town, or they may be staying home, period, because of gas.”
Typical summer weekend lines of vehicles extending outside the park entrance never developed, Smith said, and boaters trying to launch were not required to wait for boats to come off the water, as often is the case.
Traffic on Interstate 70 heading down to the Denver area from the mountains was heavy Monday afternoon but no worse than on a typical summer weekend.
The Eisenhower Tunnel reported a peak between 11 a.m. and noon of 2,848 vehicles heading east, according to maintenance supervisor Rod Henderson.
“That’s not a top 10 or anything,” he said.
Staff writer Steve Lipsher can be reached at 970-513-9495 or slipsher@denverpost.com.
