A Leaf Tour

Perhaps the ultimate fall aspen tour in Colorado is the 230-mile loop from Durango to Ridgway around to Cortez and back to Durango.

You can begin the tour in Durango, where U.S. 160 and U.S. 550 intersect. A stroll along historic Main Avenue takes you past the Strater Hotel, which was built in 1887 and whose 94 rooms are furnished with authentic Victorian antiques.

Around the corner is the Durango & Silverton Narrow Gauge Railroad, which each morning carries as many as 600 passengers into the San Juan Mountains, just as it has done since 1882.

On U.S. 550 you head north on the “Million Dollar Highway,” named for the gold ore used to pave this engineering feat and famous for its sensational views of the Needle Mountains. The road curves around cliffs as it goes to Silverton, where you’ll find wood-plank walkways to historic buildings that were once on Wyatt Earp’s beat, including the Grand Imperial Hotel built in 1883.

Over Red Mountain Pass you reach Ouray, which author John Naisbitt called “about the most beautiful place on the planet.” This mountain town set in a hanging valley jeweled by Bridal Veil and Ingram Falls is considered the Switzerland of Colorado. From there, four-wheel-drive tours will take you to ghost towns and old mining camps, or you can ride a mine train through a 3,350-foot horizontal shaft into Gold Hill.

Continue north from Ouray on U.S. 550 to Ridgway, then west on Colorado 62 to Placerville and south on Colorado 145 to Telluride, with aspen along the way. From Telluride you backtrack a few miles and then go south on Colorado 145 over Lizard Head Pass, a prime aspen-viewing area.

The route continues through the magnificent San Juan Forest on Colorado 145 to just east of Cortez, where that route picks up U.S. 160 again. Ten miles east on U.S. 160 is the entrance to Mesa Verde National Park, one of the nation’s major archeological preserves.

A score of large canyons seam the mesa, and in the shelter of hundreds of alcoves eroded in the cliffs are some of the world’s best-preserved cliff dwellings.

Get back on 160 to Durango to complete the 230-mile loop.