Bad routing from Dallas to Denver, please help!

Question

First of all, I am a gamer, so this is all coming from a gamer's point of view. I have a server that I host for my community in Denver, because everyone usually has a fair and even latency when hosted there. But recently, my hops from Dallas to Denver have been drastically different and it affects the way I play the game. I am wondering what is causing my latency to jump up 30ms, nearly double, at random times. It fluctuates back and forth all day between about 45ms (which is what it should be) to 75ms. I don't know whether it is just traffic or a bad router somewhere, but it is getting annoying. Was wondering if anyone could help me out here or help me figure out what the problem could be. I have already contacted the server company, and they found nothing wrong on their end, so I am assuming that it is the ISP that is causing this.

Answer 1

Game is Counter-Strike: Source
You could see why an extra 30 ping might mess you up with the added delay
I took this tracert last night, probably around 11p.m. CST.
> 1  <1 ms  <1ms  <1ms 192.168.0.1
> 2   5ms  4ms  4ms 10.33.34.63
> 3  7ms  7ms  7ms  G3-2-866.DLLSTX-LCR-08.verizon-gni.net [130.81.107.144
>
> 4  7ms  7ms  7ms P15-2.LCR-01.AUBNIN.verizon-gni.net [130.81.28.210]
>
> 5  8ms  9ms  9ms  0.so-7-1-0.XT4.DFW9.ALTER.NET  [152.63.0.109]
>
> 6  65ms  67ms  67ms  0.so-5-0-0.XL4.DEN4.ALTER.NET [152.63.89.106]
>
> 7  65ms  65ms  64ms  POS7-0.GW3.DEN4.ALTER.NET  [152.63.72.73]
>
> 8  65ms  64ms  64ms  internap-den-gw.customer.alter.net  [65.206.181.122]
>
> 9  66ms  67ms  67ms  border9.ge3-1-bbnet1.den.pnap.net  [216.52.40.14]
>
> 10  66ms  67ms  67ms  c-72-5-102-215.internap-denver.nuclearfallout.net [72.5.102.215]
As far as I can tell, the problem lies soley with Denver. It's not just this one server, but any Denver server I test. My latency is fine to all other locations, like Chicago, Seatlle, Dallas, and so on, but for some reason, something goes wrong with there. My connection itself does not suffer any delay or limited bandwidth. It can sometimes even go as low as 35ms, and goes as high as 75ms.
The server company that is hosting is NuclearFallout (and if you know much about server hosting companies, they are pretty much the cream of the crop).