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Eastbound Interstate 70 reopened Monday evening just before 5 p.m. after a closure of more than three hours that stemmed from more than a dozen tractor-trailers passing the chain station without being forced to chain up.

The closure was first announced just before 1:30 p.m.

Highway 24 — a popular detour around Vail Pass — closed for a couple hours between 3 and 5 p.m. Loveland Pass in Summit County is closed as well.

Snowy conditions started pounding Vail Pass starting at about 1 p.m. on Monday, said Sargeant Patrick Rice with Colorado State Patrol.

“It’s just a sheet of ice up there, multiple spun-out vehicles,” Rice said.

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Rice said the Colorado State Patrol is oftentimes the agency that recommends to the Colorado Department of Transportation that the chain law should be in effect. But sometimes, unfortunately, crews are “behind the ball on getting the chain law set in place, and it’s too late, and at that point (tractor-trailers) are already on the hill,” he said.

That appears to be what happened on Monday afternoon, said Jonathan Levine with Vail Black Car. Levine was traveling westbound down Vail Pass as the heavy snowfall began.

“At about 1:05 p.m. I started seeing all the trucks that couldn’t get up the hill,” Levine said. “So I radioed my other driver Doug Eby and told him to go around on Highway 24 at Minturn. He barely made it through.”