From the red rocks and dinosaur bones of the foothills over the Divide twice, through Leadville and Aspen to the canyons of the Western Slope, down the Million Dollar Highway to Durango and on to the cliff dwellings of Mesa Verde.
6 days · 615 miles · best in summer & fall
Denver, CO → Cortez, CO
This trip crosses Colorado from the edge of the plains to its southwest corner, about 615 miles over six days, and spends nearly all of them in the mountains. It begins in the foothills west of Denver, follows Clear Creek into the old silver country around Georgetown, crosses the Continental Divide twice, by Interstate 70 and then by Independence Pass, and comes down the Roaring Fork and the Colorado to the desert canyons around Grand Junction. From there it turns south through Montrose and over the San Juans by the Million Dollar Highway to Durango, and ends at Mesa Verde.
Most of this was Ute country, the Nuuchiu's mountains and parks, before the gold and silver rushes of the 1850s through the 1880s and the removal of the Utes from western Colorado in 1881; the trip ends in the homeland of the Ancestral Pueblo people, whose descendants live today among the Pueblos of New Mexico and Arizona and the Hopi. The drives are rarely long, but the roads are mountain roads: allow for passes, construction and stops.
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Day 1
Foothills and Silver Country
57 mi · about 1.5 hrs driving · overnight in Georgetown
Leave Denver west for the foothills at Morrison. Red Rocks Amphitheatre sits between its two great sandstone slabs, open to walkers outside show hours, and just north along the hogback the paved road over Dinosaur Ridge passes the quarries where the first Stegosaurus came out in 1877 and the footprints a road crew blasted open in 1937. Then take Interstate 70 up Clear Creek past Idaho Springs to Georgetown. Ride the Georgetown Loop Railroad over its rebuilt high bridge to Silver Plume and back, and walk the town's Victorian streets to the Hotel de Paris, where a French cook with a borrowed name kept the best table in the mountains.
2
Day 2
Over the Divide to Aspen
116 mi · about 3.2 hrs driving · overnight in Aspen
Cross the Continental Divide by the Eisenhower Tunnel and drop to Copper Mountain, then climb Fremont Pass to Leadville, at more than 10,000 feet the highest incorporated city in the country, where Horace Tabor made and lost a fortune and the town once built a palace of ice. South of Leadville, turn west at Twin Lakes onto Colorado 82 and climb to Independence Pass at 12,095 feet, the toll-road route of the 1881 Aspen rush; the stabilized cabins of the ghost town of Independence stand three miles down the far side. In Aspen, if you have a reservation, take the shuttle or drive to the Maroon Bells for the late-afternoon light on Maroon Lake.
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Day 3
Down the Rivers to the Desert
181 mi · about 4 hrs driving · overnight in Grand Junction
Follow the Roaring Fork down to Glenwood Springs and take a look east into Glenwood Canyon, where Interstate 70 rides stacked viaducts above the Colorado and Hanging Lake sits up a side canyon by permit. Then run west down the Colorado on I-70 through the Grand Valley's orchards to Fruita. Climb Colorado National Monument by Rim Rock Drive, the CCC's road along the canyon edges, and come down the far end into Grand Junction. If there is time, walk the short loop at Dinosaur Hill, where a Chicago museum crew dug a sauropod in 1901.
4
Day 4
Utes and the Black Canyon
142 mi · about 3.7 hrs driving · overnight in Ouray
Drive south up the Gunnison and Uncompahgre valleys to Montrose. The Ute Indian Museum stands on the farm of Ouray and Chipeta, beside her grave, its exhibits rebuilt with the three Ute tribes. East of town, the South Rim Road at Black Canyon of the Gunnison follows the rim of a gorge so narrow its floor sees only minutes of sun a day, past the 2,250-foot Painted Wall. Then continue south to Ouray, tight in its box canyon at the foot of the San Juans.
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Day 5
The Million Dollar Highway
72 mi · about 1.9 hrs driving · overnight in Durango
Take US-550 south out of Ouray, the road cut into the cliffs of the Uncompahgre Gorge, and climb past the headframes of the Red Mountain Mining District to Red Mountain Pass. Silverton, a silver town in an old volcanic caldera, lies below; its cemetery holds the trench graves of 1918. With a high-clearance vehicle, the county road up the Animas leads to Animas Forks. Then cross Molas and Coal Bank passes and come down the Animas Valley to Durango, where the Durango and Silverton Narrow Gauge Railroad leaves from its 1882 depot; ride it another day if you can spare one.
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Day 6
Mesa Verde
47 mi · about 1.1 hrs driving · overnight in Cortez
Drive west on US-160 to the entrance of Mesa Verde National Park and climb the long park road to Chapin Mesa, where rangers lead tours into Cliff Palace and Balcony House. The dwellings were built and rebuilt in the 1200s, as the rings in their beams show. In the afternoon, continue to Cortez and north to the museum near Dolores that serves as visitor center for Canyons of the Ancients, built on the finds of the dig that came before McPhee Reservoir.
The drives this trip follows
Each one is traced end to end on its own page, with every stop worth making along the way.
