Replying to Avoiding I-70 Traffic

I need some help from my CO peeps. I am gonna be heading out to Breck for a week arriving on Saturday 1/29. I have heard the horror stories about I-70 west of Denver on the weekends and want to try to avoid that. I am not going to be skiing that Saturday but I really don't want to get into that traffic after 14 hours of driving if I can avoid it. I was looking at taking US 24 from Limon through Colorado Springs since my Airbnb is in Fairplay but I have never driven that route in winter to know if that's a good idea or not. Any advice on avoiding the shit show that is I-70 would be appreciated