Scenic Byway: Guanella Pass

Known for its autumn aspen viewing, the Guanella Pass Scenic Byway is also a great short trip to take in the winter months. We drove out of Denver on Sunday after lunch, it was naptime for our daughter and we thought we would take in some scenery while she slept.

The byway is a dirt road that connects the town of Grant (on US 285) with Georgetown (on I 70). The road is about 22 miles long and rises above the treeline into a rugged tundra pass at its midpoint. We ended up in Grant quite by chance and decided to drive the byway and see how difficult the road conditions were.

The road is pretty well populated for the first 8-10 miles and the road was fairly well maintained. Which is to say that it was well-packed snow that had been plowed recently. I had no problems in our CR-V, which has 4-wheel drive but is not a high-clearance vehicle by anyone's reckoning. I saw a guy in a Volvo sedan coming down to meet us, but I have no idea how high he got before turning back.

For my part, I drove until signs on both sides of the road announced that it was closed. I was about 10 miles from Grant and the road appeared to be maintained beyond that point for at least a few hundred feet. After that it curved around an hill and was lost to sight. Call me yellow if you like, but AAA won't sent a tow truck after you if you've driven past a warning sign.

Along the way, however, we did see some fantastic sights. It was snowing lightly and so visibility was somewhat diminished, but the views were still beautiful. The approach to the byway on US 285 is really nice. My wife an I have a running joke about how almost all of the highways in western Colorado are "scenic." The stretch of US 285 between Denver and Grant is no exception. It winds through the Platte River valley (the river runs alongside the road for most of the trip) with a great mix of canyon walls and level valley meadows all along the route. The hills are sprinkled with fir and pine trees and the meadows are trimmed with aspens and other desiduous trees that I could not readily identify. Add to this a fine blanket of snow and you have a setting worthy of a Courier and Ives print.

Coming into Grant (blink and you'll miss it) the byway is a right hand turn marked by the columbine emblem of the Colorado State Byways. The road winds through a narrow canyon for some way before opening up to allow for the occasional home or campground. The byway cuts through the Pike National Forest. There is a frozen creek that runs alongside the road for most of its climb to the pass.

Not 3 miles from the highway, we spotted a small group of bighorn sheep perched on the rocks above the road. They stood there and looked at us for about 10 minutes, not more than 30 feet from our car. Magnificent creatures. Of course, that's the point at which I realized that I had left my camera at home.

We plan to try the drive from the Georgetown end of the road in a week or two and see how much of the road we can cover from there.

You can check out the website for this byway by clicking here. They have pictures of spring and summer along the road.

There are places to stop for gas and snacks all along US 285 (including a coney island restaurant shaped like a giant hot dog) but not much in the way of public facilities open in winter on the byway itself. The winter trip is family friendly, providing your kids are old enough to be entertained looking for wildlife (or young enough to sleep through the whole thing) and your family vehicle has 4-wheel drive. Check the weather before you go and know your own driving limitations.