Highway 24 backs up during holiday weekend

Highway 24 was backed up Sunday afternoon with masses of people flocking to Pikes Peak for the holiday.

“We wanted to see Colorado and go up Pikes Peak on a motorcycle, and it’s about 650 miles away,” motorist Steve Cole said.

The traffic jam made couple Cole and his wife Angela Cole turn around when they got almost to the base of Pikes Peak, after a 650-mile drive from North Dakota on their motorcycle.

“It took more than an hour to just get up from Colorado Springs,” Cole said. “We made it as far as the base of the mountain, but the traffic is not moving up the mountain. I don’t think we’re going to make it any further.”

Alex Leiker and Holly Taylor are braving the traffic jam.

“I haven’t been to Pikes Peak in over a decade, and my fiance has never been,” Taylor said.

The Weber family came out for a Colorado vacation from Illinois. They’re looking on the bright side up Pikes Peak Highway.

“The slower you go, I guess, the safer it is to get up the mountain,” Doug Weber said.

But he said a little warning about the traffic would have been nice.

“Maybe a notification, you know three or four miles on each side, like ‘Hey, expect heavy traffic,'” Weber said.

Traffic also backed up along Highway 24 near Manitou Springs and Old Colorado City from all the holiday weekend traffic.