The San Juan Mountains drive: the Southwest's best road trip offers two scenic rivers, three charming small towns, and an endless range of mountaintops

Sunset, July, 1998 by John Villani

One of the high-country Southwest's all-time best road trips doesn't run through deserts or along the Mexican bottler. Instead, it courses among the spires of Colorado's grand San Juan Mountains, exploring the headwaters of the Rio Grande and Arkansas rivers and winding through the San Juans' small towns: burgeoning but unspoiled Salida; fishing capital Lake City; and the art community of Creede.

On the way, it traverses three mountain passes and cruises across the broad plains of the San Luis Valley. The route is all smooth sailing on two-lane blacktop, with passing lanes on the steepest mountain roads - ideal for everything from Harleys to Winnebagos, mountain bikes to ragtops.

A touch of the wild in Salida

"This is one of the last of Colorado's unspoiled towns," says outdoorsman Ray Kitson in his office overlooking Salida's stretch of the Arkansas River. The owner of a river rafting and outdoors equipment business, Kitson says he's seen this Victorian-era town of 6,000 blossom from "ugly" to "great" since he arrived here in the mid-'80s.

Tucked along the Arkansas and surrounded by the 14,000-foot peaks of the San Juan and Sangre de Cristo mountain ranges, Salida has been drawing backcountry guides specializing in rafting, fly-fishing, mountain climbing, and cross-country skiing, and that has turned this town into one of the state's economic revival success stories. Salida's bigger surprise for visitors, however, is a milder-than-expected climate - a boon to local gardeners and springtime river rafters alike.

The well-kept downtown is also Colorado's largest historic district, and though its streets today are lined with art galleries, coffee shops, and fine restaurants (try Il Vicino for luscious pizza with innovative toppings), it retains touches of its wilder days as an outpost for carousing miners and lumberjacks. Salida's pool tables, jukeboxes, and beer taps prove this community hasn't been overrun by the incessant gentrification afflicting many Rocky Mountain towns.

Chasing trout in Lake City

Head west over Monarch Pass (11,312 feet) on the road that is Salida's main drag (U.S. 50) and stop for gas and an ice cream cone in Gunnison. Then turn south on State 149 for the spectacular drive into Lake City along the Lake Fork of the Gunnison River. Skirting the west edge of Powderhorn village, State 149 winds through rock formations, alpine valleys, and flower-filled meadows before descending into the small town of Lake City.

With its high-mountain setting (at 8,671 feet), spring arrives late in Lake City, and it's not uncommon to see lilac bushes blooming well into July - or snowfalls in early September. Come the warm days of summer, this town of 350 residents explodes in size, with visitors filling up campgrounds, fishing for rainbow trout in area lakes, and four-wheeling along old mining roads leading to places like Ouray and Silverton, as well as several ghost towns.

Lake City is surrounded by the 14,000-foot mountains that locals refer to as "Fourteeners," and two of these (Redcloud Peak and Sunshine Peak) provide the snowmelt that helps fill Lake San Cristobal, a famous trout-fishing destination.

Lakeview Resort, a family-owned seasonal resort on the shores of this crystal-clear, high-country lake, offers everything from fishing boat and equipment rentals to mountain cabins and four-wheel-drive vehicles. And for those who don't care to catch their dinner, there's always Charlie P.'s Mountain Harvest Restaurant's Mexican specialties (if you're feeling adventurous, try the enchiladas chipotles).

Arts and crafts are the new Creede

Continue southeast on State 149; the road out of town passes through several notable places, the first of which is Starvation Gulch, site of the Alfred Packer massacre on the south end of Lake City. Hired as a guide to lead gold prospectors across the San Juans during the winter of 1874, Packer and five others became stranded in what was then a desolate mountain valley. When Packer wandered out of the San Juans alone the next April, he soon became part of Wild West legend and lore when he was convicted of cannibalism for having made dinner out of his five employers.

Move from gore to glory: one of the continent's most gorgeous vistas, the headwaters of the Rio Grande, is less than an hour away. The ribbon of blacktop first crosses Slumgullion Pass (11,361 feet) and then Spring Creek Pass (10,901 feet) before revealing its breathtaking roadside view of Rio Grande Pyramid, a 13,830-foot peak that defines the concept of Continental Divide. To the north of this astoundingly symmetrical mountain, snowmelt waters are destined for the Rio Grande and the Gulf of Mexico, while waters from its eastern and southern flanks eventually flow into the Gulf of California via the Colorado River.

Fields of wild blue irises (in bloom from May through July) line sections of the highway as it finds its way into the Victorian-era town of Creede, a former mining community now filled with art galleries, craft stores, and a highly regarded repertory theater.