The San Juan Skyway is the 236-mile loop that starts at Telluride's doorstep

Telluride sits on one of the great drives in the country, and it’s easy to forget that when you’re focused on whether a pass is icy. The San Juan Skyway is a 236-mile loop through the San Juan Mountains, and in 1996 the U.S. Secretary of Transportation named it an All-American Road, the top tier of scenic byways.

It links Telluride with Ouray, Silverton, Durango, and the mesa towns of Cortez, Mancos, and Dolores, riding Highways 145, 62, US 550, and US 160. Along the way you pass Victorian mining towns tucked in alpine valleys, peaks reaching toward 14,000 feet, the canyon-clinging Million Dollar Highway between Ouray and Silverton, and Mesa Verde National Park off the southwest corner.

CDOT lists the loop at about six hours of driving, but that’s pure windshield time. With photo stops, a soak, lunch in a mining town, and afternoon thunderstorms in summer, it’s realistically a full day or a relaxed two.

So while our other notes flag Lizard Head and Red Mountain passes as roads to respect, the same roads, stitched into a loop, are the reason people drive here on purpose. For the full route, towns, and seasonal notes, see CDOT’s official San Juan Skyway byway page.