San Juan Skyway Scenic Byway – Colorado

In 600 AD, Pueblo Indians, lived and worked in Southwest Colorado. When resources became scarce and their crops had been compromised by drought and frost, the Pueblo Indians left the region to settle in other parts of Colorado, Arizona, and New Mexico. The Spanish followed about 500 years later, striking gold. Miners established towns, leading to the birth of the railroad in the area. Today, this area is full of ancient ruins, deserted mining towns, national parks, and some of the best scenery in America. The San Juan Skyway Scenic Byway covers 236 miles of terrain across southwestern Colorado. This loop travels through Durango, Mancos, Dolores, Stoner, Rico, Telluride, Ridgway, Ouray, and Silverton. Be sure to allow at least two days to see everything this byway has to offer – Ref: www.coloradodirectory.com

I like/love to drive long. When I was searching for the best scenic freeways in US, this has come up in one of the articles. I already covered the other scenic freeway – The trail ridge road in Rocky Mountain National Park last year.

I was doing lots of research on this one as driving a Million Dollar Highway (MDH) is a dangerous one in winter. So I was looking into the weather forecast almost every day 2 weeks from my trip to Colorado. I was lucky in a way that it was snowing heavily a day or 2 before I start my trip and there were no snow on Friday and over the weekend. In this way, I can drive safe at the same time I can see a fresh snow. The closest airport near Durango is the Albuquerque International Airport in New Mexico and its a 3 hour drive to Durango where my ‘real’ travel starts. I flew to Albuquerque Thursday night, took the rental car and reached the hotel at 12 midnight. I booked the Durango & Silverton train to Cascade canyon the next day at 9:45AM. So I had to start from Albuquerque at around 4:30AM to overcome the rain and bad road condition due to earlier snow. I had only 3 and half hour of sleep. Checked-out the hotel and started driving at exactly 4:30AM. It was cold and windy.

I already had a bad encounter in Big Bear, CA while driving in snow without wheel chain. After seeing this, my mind somehow went to that incident. Luckily, this snow was intermittent.

I reached Durango exactly at 8:45AM (it took 4h:15m just to drive 215 miles), had something at McD because I had to check-in the train at 9:15AM. After the fast breakfast, I got the seat in the train.

I can definitely say that this was my best ever train ride. The Cascade Canyon excursion departs from Durango and leads you on a 26-mile journey through the San Juan National Forest and along the Animas River in the comfort of heated coaches. Sit back, relax, and enjoy breathtaking views along untouched land deep in the canyon.

Another problem because of the earlier snow was, the train track was full of snow. The train couldn’t able to push the snow out with all those 6-8 compartments. So the engine had to go alone, clean the snow and had to come back. Till then we were inside the train, enjoying the hot chocolate, went outside for a freezing walk. The below photo was taken while we were waiting for the engine to come back.

We started out magical journey after an hour and half and it was like a fairy tale ride.

Once the train crosses the Rockwood station, we had a real fun. See the following videos for a feel of it. It was snowing up there, a cliff on one side, 1000 feet drop in the other side, snow packed mountain, river, lake etc. what else we could ask for.

What an experience I had. Because of 1 and half hour delay, we reached back the station at 4:30PM only. It supposed to come back at 2:45PM. Nevertheless, it was a wonderful once in a life time journey. I was roaming around the downtown till 7PM taking some pictures and had my dinner. It was -5’c at evening, so I couldn’t spend much time outside. Came back to the hotel and slept at 9PM.

Next day morning, I was planning to see the Animas River trail and then head to the Smelter Mountain hiking. I took few pictures of Animas River.

I wanted to see the Durango from the Smelter Mountain top. The only way to see that is hiking to the top of the Smelter mountain which is 2 miles hike from the bottom parking lot. As it was snowing, the path was not clean. I was the only one there in the mountain the entire 1 and half hour of my hiking. while going up, I took 1 hour, but coming back took just 25 minutes..

After coming back from hiking, I started driving to Telluride. The plan was to stay in Telluride overnight.  The below one is Lake Nighthorse in Durango.

Drive from Durango to Telluride:

This is one heaven of a drive. The best 2 hour drive of my life. What a scenic way! The snow covered mountains, cliffs, lakes, rivers, hot springs… OMG. Unbelievable.

I reached Telluride at around 3:30PM on Saturday. I liked this mountain town more than any other small towns in the US. The entire town is surrounded by mountains, there is a river, there is a lake, there is a gondola which connects the Telluride to the Mountain Village. What a serenity it was!

As usual, roaming around the Telluride downtown, shopped a little bit and had my dinner, went to bed early as the next day drive would be more than 8 hours.

Woke up early on Sunday, again went to the Gondola to ride from Telluride to Mountain village (this ride is free) to see the sunrise. But it was cloudy, so a little disappointment here. I started driving from Telluride at around 9 in the morning. The plan was to drive to Ouray, Silverton, Durango and then back to Albuquerque to catch my flight on Monday morning.

Telluride to Ouray was an hour drive (50 miles). This journey was OK as I was already super excited while driving from Durango to Telluride. So I was not taking this drive seriously eventhough you see lots of snow capped mountains again.

I reached Ouray (The Switzerland of America) at around 11AM. This town is amazing. People does the ice climbing, they have Ouray hot springs and lots of shops and restaurants.

I didn’t have much plan for Ouray (May be, i’ll come back here in Summer/Fall for the Ouray Perimeter hiking and other stuffs) except driving on a Million Dollar Highway.

This 19 miles drive from Ouray to Silverton is very scary and at the same time magnificent. Lots of hairpin bends, deep drops, cliffs, its really a “Million Dollar” Highway. You won’t get that feel even if you offered a $M.

I reached Silverton after enjoying a 20 mile scariest/best drive. This is also a small mountain town, good for some lakes hiking and wild flowers in spring.

Do you see ‘Alien’ in the mountain? 🙂 This is Silverton.

Now it’s time for lunch and I was heading to Durango which is an hour drive from here. You can start from Durango and come to Silverton. But due to snow couple of days back, I didn’t want to drive the MDH within a day of my trip. So I took the other way.

Reached Durango at around 2PM on Sunday and had a buffet lunch at Himalayan Indian Restaurant. I can’t blame them for the shortage of food as I was late. But my stomach was craving for a rice and chicken..).

After lunch and got some souvenirs in Durango, I started driving at 3PM. I was driving slowly as I was tired. So I took 4 and half hour to reach Albuquerque. After reaching hotel, took shower and headed for dinner. After light dinner, I packed everything from the car and went to bed at 9PM. Next day morning, woke up at 3:45AM, got ready and returned the rental car and took the shuttle to reach the airport. I was an hour early for my flight back to Los Angeles at 5:55AM.

I reached LAX and took my car out of LAX parking lot, drive home and then headed back to office. Travel mode OFF and Work mode ON.

I would highly recommend going to enjoy this scenic highway and all the mountain towns, Durango, Telluride, Ouray and Silverton and the spectacular drives. If you are afraid of winter season, you can go there in Summer or Fall. If you are interested in Skiing, Snowboarding, Hiking and exploring then THIS is for you. You need atleast 3-4 days to fully enjoy this Magical journey!