A huge avalanche knocked two cars off a major highway in Colorado Saturday and buried eight occupants in snow, just missing the rush hour of drivers headed for a nearby ski hill.

A wall of snow swept across Highway 40 in Colorado on Saturday, burying at least two cars.
(CBC)

The eight were rescued from the buried vehicles and all were taken to area hospitals, said state Patrolman Eric Wynn. Details of their conditions were not available.

The wall of snow stormed across Highway 40 near Berthoud Pass, about 100 kilometres west of Denver between 10 a.m. and 10:30 MT. The busy highway leads to the popular Winter Park ski resort.

Mile Cikara, who was headed to Winter Park to ski, told KMGH-TV in Denver that he joined others furiously digging out victims.

"I, along with 30 other people, grabbed shovels and started digging to get people out. I had a shovel, but people were using their hands, skis, ski poles, whatever, to dig out," until rescue teams arrived, he said.

The avalanche occurred after the third major snowstorm hit the state in as many weeks. The Denver area was blanketed with up to 17 centimetres of snow on Friday.

"This is a tremendous amount of snow to come down on the mountainside," said Stacey Stegman, spokeswoman for the Colorado Department of Transportation.

Stegman described the avalanche as three-pronged, 30 metres wide and 4½ metres deep.

The timing meant most traffic headed to the ski area had already passed through.

The pass was closed and would not reopen until Sunday at the earliest, state Patrolman Eric Wynn told CNN.

With files from the Associated Press