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Vice President Pence in Vail for Memorial Day weekend, sources confirm

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May 25, 2018, 4:18 pm

Vice President Mike Pence arrived in Vail on the Friday afternoon kicking off Memorial Day weekend, according to several sources who requested anonymity.

Vice President Mike Pence

Vice President Mike Pence

A motorcade with a police escort got off Interstate 70 at about 3:30 p.m., according to several witnesses. The main Vail roundabout was closed to traffic for a brief period.

The motorcade was accompanied by helicopter air support, witnesses said.

A large Secret Service presence was later seen at the Lodge at Vail.

No official word yet on the purpose of the visit, although Pence in the past has vacationed in Colorado, including a trip to Aspen over the Christmas holiday last year.

A message left on a White House press line was not returned Friday evening.

Sources say Pence will be in the Vail Valley for the entire three-day Memorial Day weekend and that he will be traveling to Camp Hale for a wedding ceremony.

Camp Hale south of Minturn and on the way to Leadville is an area where the famed 10th Mountain Division ski troopers, many of whom went on to found Colorado’s ski industry, trained for mountain combat during World War II. It is currently proposed for a new type of wilderness designation.

The Vail Valley for many years was home to the late President Gerald Ford, who built one of the first houses in Beaver Creek.

Besides Ford, past presidential visits included one from former President Bill Clinton in the 1990s.

More recently, former President Jimmy Carter has held events in Vail, including the unveiling of a play about Camp David in 2015. Carter’s Vice President, Walter Mondale, once lit Vail’s traditional Christmas Tree to kick off the holiday season in the early 1980s.

Other vice presidents who visited Vail include Dick Cheney, Al Gore and Dan Quayle, who learned to snowboard at Vail.

During the Obama administration, former first lady Michelle Obama visited Vail with her daughters, Sasha and Malia. President Barack Obama did not come along on that trip.

Pence made numerous trips to Colorado during the 2016 presidential campaign that saw President Donald Trump elected in a surprise win over former first lady Hillary Clinton.

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David O. Williams

Managing Editor at RealVail
David O. Williams is the editor and co-founder of RealVail.com and has had his awarding-winning work (see About Us) published in more than 75 newspapers and magazines around the world, including 5280 Magazine, American Way Magazine (American Airlines), the Anchorage Daily News (Alaska), the Anchorage Daily Press (Alaska), Aspen Daily News, Aspen Journalism, the Aspen Times, Beaver Creek Magazine, the Boulder Daily Camera, the Casper Star Tribune (Wyoming), the Chicago Tribune, Colorado Central Magazine, the Colorado Independent (formerly Colorado Confidential), Colorado Newsline, Colorado Politics (formerly the Colorado Statesman), Colorado Public News, the Colorado Springs Gazette, the Colorado Springs Independent, the Colorado Statesman (now Colorado Politics), the Colorado Times Recorder, the Cortez Journal, the Craig Daily Press, the Curry Coastal Pilot (Oregon), the Daily Trail (Vail), the Del Norte Triplicate (California), the Denver Daily News, the Denver Gazette, the Denver Post, the Durango Herald, the Eagle Valley Enterprise, the Eastside Journal (Bellevue, Washington), ESPN.com, Explore Big Sky (Mont.), the Fort Morgan Times (Colorado), the Glenwood Springs Post-Independent, the Grand Junction Daily Sentinel, the Greeley Tribune, the Huffington Post, the King County Journal (Seattle, Washington), the Kingman Daily Miner (Arizona), KUNC.org (northern Colorado), LA Weekly, the Las Vegas Sun, the Leadville Herald-Democrat, the London Daily Mirror, the Moab Times Independent (Utah), the Montgomery Journal (Maryland), the Montrose Daily Press, The New York Times, the Parent’s Handbook, Peaks Magazine (now Epic Life), People Magazine, Powder Magazine, the Pueblo Chieftain, PT Magazine, the Rio Blanco Herald Times (Colorado), Rocky Mountain Golf Magazine, the Rocky Mountain News, RouteFifty.com (formerly Government Executive State and Local), the Salt Lake Tribune, SKI Magazine, Ski Area Management, SKIING Magazine, the Sky-Hi News, the Steamboat Pilot & Today, the Sterling Journal Advocate (Colorado), the Summit Daily News, United Hemispheres (United Airlines), Vail/Beaver Creek Magazine, Vail en Español, Vail Health Magazine, Vail Valley Magazine, the Vail Daily, the Vail Trail, Westword (Denver), Writers on the Range and the Wyoming Tribune Eagle. Williams is also the founder, publisher and editor of RealVail.com and RockyMountainPost.com.