Colorado
From the cliff dwellings of Mesa Verde out onto the shortgrass plains — the passes and mining towns of the San Juans, the headwaters of the Colorado River, Tava-kaavi, which the maps call Pikes Peak, Sand Creek, where the army massacred Cheyenne and Arapaho people in 1864, and the homeland of the Nuuchiu, the Ute people.
All of Colorado, One Map
Tap any dot to discover what makes a place worth the stop.
Plan a Trip
Day-by-day plans — real drive times, honest overnights, and the permit fine print sorted before you leave.
Scenic Drives
The roads themselves — traced end to end, with the stops worth making along the way.
CO-82: Twin Lakes over Independence Pass to Glenwood Springs
Over the Continental Divide at 12,095 feet on the 1881 toll-road route, down the Roaring Fork through Aspen to the canyon at Glenwood Springs. Closed half the year.
US-24 Ute Pass: Colorado Springs to Florissant
From the red fins of the Garden of the Gods up Fountain Creek through Ute Pass to the petrified redwoods of Florissant, an easy hour with a day's worth of stops.
US-34 Trail Ridge Road: Estes Park to Grand Lake
Forty-eight miles across Rocky Mountain National Park on the highest continuous paved road in the country, built from 1929 to replace a road that could not cope.
US-550: Durango to Ouray over the Million Dollar Highway
Up the Animas Valley, over three passes above 10,000 feet to Silverton, and down the Uncompahgre Gorge on a road with almost no guardrails.
Regions of Colorado
Each region gathers the parks, towns, drives, and roadside stops that define one corner of the state.
Denver & the Front Range
The Arapaho winter camp at the Platte, Gregory's 1859 lode, Left Hand and the governor's proclamation that led to Sand Creek, and the Georgetown Loop.
Mesa Verde & the Four Corners
Cliff Palace and six hundred cliff dwellings, the 1891 collector whose digging fed the Antiquities Act, and the Ute Mountain tribal park no one enters without a Ute guide.
Pikes Peak & the Royal Gorge
Tava-kaavi and the Ute Pass trail, Cripple Creek's gold and the miners deported at gunpoint, and the gorge two railroads fought over.
Rocky Mountain National Park & the North
Folsom hunters at Lindenmeier, the Arapaho elders who named the peaks in 1914, Trail Ridge Road over the Divide, and the colony Nathan Meeker founded before White River.
The Arkansas Valley & the Santa Fe Trail
Bent's adobe fort on the old border, Sand Creek and the two officers who held back their men, the Ludlow tent colony, and the camp named for a Cheyenne woman.
The Central Rockies
Leadville's silver and the Tabor fortune that vanished in 1893, the valley where the 10th Mountain Division learned to fight on skis, and Aspen's second life.
The Northeastern Plains
The South Platte road and Colorado's only Pony Express station, the raids that burned Julesburg after Sand Creek, Beecher Island, and Summit Springs.
The San Juans & the Black Canyon
The 1873 sale of the high San Juans, the Ames plant where alternating current went to work, Butch Cassidy's first bank, and the Black Canyon of the Gunnison.
The San Luis Valley
The tallest dunes in North America, Colorado's oldest town and its first water right, the heirs who won back La Sierra, and the fort Kit Carson commanded.
The Western Slope & the Northwest
The plowed racetrack at White River and the removal of the Utes, the canyon John Otto talked into a monument, and the dam that was never built at Echo Park.
Stories from Colorado
The histories behind the places — the people, the disasters, the inventions, and the long memory of the land.
