The historic San Juan Mountains in Colorado were a prime mining location back in the early 1800s to 1900s. Because of the local mining industry, there is an extensive dirt road network that connects many passes and basins in the area. Today, these dirt roads have become a popular off-roading experience for tourists and locals alike.

A popular off-roading route is the Alpine Loop, which connects Ouray, Silverton, and Lake City. Due to its popularity, there are many Jeep and ATV rental options in these towns. We rented our Jeep from a local hotel business outside of Ouray. The total price for a two-door Jeep rental came out to about $200/day, which seemed to be the average rate in the area.

We visited the San Juan Mountains in July of 2019, after a severe winter with record breaking snowfall. Unfortunately, the snow on the Alpine Loop had not melted enough for all areas of the road to be passable. So instead, we decided to take our Jeep up to Yankee Boy Basin and Ophir Pass.

I have marked the off-roading routes that we completed in the San Juan Mountains on this map. The map shows Yankee Boy Basin and Ophir Pass. Ouray is also marked for reference.

Yankee Boy Basin

(12,400 ft elevation)

Starting right outside of Ouray, we headed out on Camp Bird Road (361). Yankee Boy Basin is 18.6 miles from Ouray and a 4,700 foot elevation climb.

The first half of the road is maintained fairly well and is pretty easy to drive. But after that point, the trail quickly becomes much more rough with steep dips, high points, and an occasional water crossing. It is important to use a high-clearance 4×4 vehicle. I would not recommend driving the route to a less than confident driver.

Due to the large amount of snow this season, we were only able to drive ~90% of the way to Yankee Boy Basin. This was disappointing because we were looking forward to completing the Blue Lakes Trail (trailhead at Yankee Boy Basin). Regardless, the views we had along the way were so worth it!

Ophir Pass

(11,789 ft elevation)

After heading back to Ouray to grab a quick lunch, we started south on the Million Dollar Highway (State Highway 550) towards Silverton. The turn off for Ophir Pass is on the west side of the highway shortly before you hit Silverton and is clearly marked. This dirt road can be used as a shorter route to Telluride which is located on the other side of the pass.

From State Highway 550, the small mining town of Ophir is only 8 miles away. After reaching Ophir Pass (the highest elevation point on the route), the road begins to descend towards Ophir town and becomes quite narrow with very few pull-off locations. As we started to head towards Ophir town, we quickly realized that navigating the narrow roads with the heavy traffic on that day was going to require more effort than we were willing to give.

At the first opportunity, we found a ledge and quickly turned the vehicle around. As we got out of the Jeep for a quick photograph, we were joined on our ledge by 6 other Jeeps who had pulled aside to allow others to pass. I would highly recommend driving the route to Ophir town earlier in the day to avoid the crowds. After a 20 minute traffic jam, we headed back up to Ophir Pass for a quick hike to Crystal Lake.

Hike to Crystal Lake

The trailhead for Crystal Lake is located at Ophir Pass (highest part of the drive at 11,789 feet) and can be a little difficult to find. We may have wandered around for 15 minutes looking for the trailhead and were eventually able to find it (right under our noses) behind the Ophir Pass sign.

Once you locate the trailhead, it is 0.6 miles of switchbacks to the top. The majority of the trail is a steep hill of scree and loose rocks making it a very difficult climb, but the views of Crystal Lake and the surrounding mountain peaks were so worth it!

At the top of the hill is a spectacular view of Crystal Lake. Again, due to the large amount of snow and ice the lake was still mostly frozen over.