The Road to the Top: Mount Blue Sky Scenic Byway
Near Idaho Springs, Colorado
If you turn south out of Idaho Springs onto Highway One Oh Three, you are at the gateway to one of the most extraordinary drives in North America. It leads to the Mount Blue Sky Scenic Byway, long known as the Mount Evans road, which climbs to just over fourteen thousand one hundred feet. That makes it the highest paved road on the continent, beating even the famous Pike's Peak Highway by about twenty five feet.
Construction of this incredible road began in the early nineteen twenties as part of the Denver Mountain Parks system, and the route was laid out in part by Frederick Law Olmsted Junior, son of the man who designed New York's Central Park. From the summit you can gain around seven thousand feet of elevation on the way up, passing ancient bristlecone pines, herds of mountain goats and bighorn sheep, and finally arriving above the tree line in genuine alpine tundra. Because of ferocious winter weather, the upper road is generally only open from late spring to early fall.
One note on the name. In September of twenty twenty three the mountain was officially renamed Mount Blue Sky, after the previous namesake, a territorial governor, was tied to a massacre of Native people. You may still see it labeled Mount Evans on older signs and maps.
