The gates on Highway 82 on both sides of 12,095-foot high Independence Pass were opened yesterday for the first time since Nov. 7.

Promptly at 2 p.m., Edwin Ridenour, a transportation maintenance crew member with the Colorado Department of Transportation, unlocked a padlock, lifted off a heavy chain and swung open the gates on the Aspen side of the pass.

Six cars waiting in line under a freezing rain sped off and up the pass and soon entered another season — winter. Snow was falling steadily at the Weller Lake trailhead parking lot Thursday afternoon, and deep snowbanks were visible in the woods just off the road.

That didn’t deter brothers Will and Ben Hollister of Snowmass Village, who were gearing up in the parking lot to do a little fishing in Weller Lake. “Hopefully, we’ll pull something up,” said Will Hollister.

At 4:18 p.m., a black sports car cruised down the wet road by Weller campground. It was the first car that had made it up and over from the Twin Lakes side of the pass, and did so in much less time than the speed limit normally allows.

The next car down the pass was a gray pickup truck whose license plate read “CO MTNS.”

While the campsites in the Weller Lake campground were open and clear of snow, the Lost Man campground was closed and full of snow.

The lower Lost Man trailhead parking lot had room for about three cars, and the rest of the lot was full of snow. Hikers will need snowshoes for days to come to hike the trail.

At the top of the pass, the snow is thick on the ground, ranging from at least 3 feet deep to corners where the snowbanks are still triple overhead.

An Aspen local, who said he couldn’t give his name for fear of being busted for playing hooky from work, made three short laps on his skis Thursday from the top of the pass down the slope to the other side. Wearing a Red Wings hockey jersey to celebrate his team’s recent Stanley Cup win, he said this was the 70th consecutive month he had skied at least one day. “It was really cream-cheesy,” he said of the snow’s consistency, which included a few inches of fresh snow by late afternoon.

Skiers and snowboarders will likely find quality backcountry ski conditions this weekend on the chutes and bowls accessible off the top of the pass that run down to pick-up spots along Highway 82.

Bill and Schelley Brown of Atlanta, Ga., stopped at the top of the pass Thursday afternoon to watch the snow fly. It was their first time driving over the scenic, narrow, twisting highway.

“Absolutely incredible,” Bill Brown said. “From where we are from, this is amazing. We came over Monarch Pass this morning, and we thought that was incredible because it was snowing, but we hadn’t seen anything yet.”

Tim Kelley of Garden City, N.Y., came over the pass Thursday from Twin Lakes while on a post college-graduation, cross-country road trip. “When we started the day, it was warm and we were in Texas, but now it’s cold and I’m back in Colorado,” he said as snow flurries surrounded his car. “It’s crazy.”

Road maintenance crews from CDOT have been working on both sides for the last month to clear the road. The two crews saw each other for the first time on top of the pass on Saturday, said Les Stanton, a CDOT maintenance supervisor based on the Aspen side.

“We opened it up last Saturday, and we had probably 20-foot walls at that time, but over the week they have melted down considerably,” Stanton said.

Usually, crews on the Aspen side start plowing at the Lincoln Creek Road. This season, there were 2 1/2 feet of snow on the road at the closure gate.

The crews started chipping away at the snow-buried road with front-end loaders and snowplows. “A good day on a regular year is about three miles,” Stanton said. “This year, it was about a mile a day.”

They use a bulldozer to help pioneer a route down the first steep switchback on the Aspen side of the pass, which is completely exposed to the valley floor thousands of feet below. Mike Bowker, a heavy equipment operator from Grand Junction, is the lucky guy charged with driving the bulldozer, shaving the snow off, layer by layer, until he reaches the level of the guardrail.

“He’s the guy that’s got enough balls to come down off the top, basically,” Stanton said.

CDOT crews had originally hoped to get the pass open for Memorial Day weekend, which fell about a week earlier than usual this year.

Ordinarily, Independence Pass is open by the last weekend in May, so Thursday’s opening was only about a week late.

And anyone who drives over it and returns to the middle of winter will certainly understand why.

CDOT officials warned that the pass could be temporarily closed again due to inclement weather or hazardous road conditions. Current info is available at www.cotrip.org [1] on the “alerts and restrictions page.”

bgs@aspendailynews.com