Ophir Pass | Ophir, CO

If you’ve been following the news at all, you’ve seen that Texas was majorly impacted by the winter weather that passed through this past week. Fortunately, we were lucky to have not experienced as much devastation as some of our friends and neighbors, but it was still a crazy week altogether. This weekend temperatures shot back up to the 60s and 70s which helped us get out of the cold weather funk and start thinking about what trips we want to take this year. Since we just booked our 3rd annual summer trip to Telluride, I figured I’d share about a fun experience we had near Telluride on our first trip 3 years ago – driving Ophir Pass!

Ophir Pass is a scenic way to get from Telluride to Silverton. If you google “Ophir Pass” one of the suggested searches is “Ophir Pass Deaths” — it’s definitely not a drive for the faint of heart!

We discovered Ophir Pass on our first trip to Telluride. We rented a 4 wheel drive Jeep Wrangler and wanted to find some off road trails in the area, as they are quite abundant! The Jeep attendant told us about Ophir Pass and how dangerous it was, and of course Donovan’s face lit up. It was the first thing he wanted to do! Surprisingly, there was still a lot of snow on the ground (in July!!) so many of the trails were closed, so it looked like Ophir was the only one we’d really be able to do.

The drive up to Ophir (the town) was pretty quick from Telluride – may be 10 minutes? And it was gorgeous. Because of all the snow and rain earlier in the year, everything was so lush and green!

As soon as turned onto the trail, the dirt road made way for a gravel road, which was quite bumpy. The first part of the trail was still heavily forested. I don’t think we really knew what we were getting into, until we cleared the trees and ended up in a valley of sorts. All of a sudden, we realized we were on a 1-way road, and there was no way to turn back!

I’m not going to lie, this is the part where my palms started sweating. Donovan let me drive, and I immediately regretted it. There was a steep drop off to our right, and there were no guardrails or anything. The road was just wide enough for the Jeep.

This was probably the scariest drive of my life. Near the top, you have to legit make a 90 degree turn, and if cars are coming from the other way, you kind of have to chicken dance to get around them. Fortunately, there weren’t any other cars, so we could easily navigate. At one point, I got out of the car and let Donovan do the 45 point turn because I was just too nervous to do it!

Once we made it to the top, we were impressed with the height of the snow drifts! I am 5’7”, so these things had to be at least 15 feet tall in some places!

What I can’t fathom is how the snow plows made it to the top to plow the road! We both got out of the car and walked around for a little bit before continuing onward.

We even found the Ophir Pass sign, so we had to stop for a photo op. Poor Donovan wasn’t feeling great this day – he had a bad sinus infection – so he didn’t feel well and had a hard time breathing so we didn’t stick around too long.

The way down the backside of the mountain towards Silverton was absolutely gorgeous. More lush, greenery and waterfalls from the snowmelt!

From end to end, Ophir Pass Trail is about 10 miles, but it probably took us an hour and a half because we stopped so much to take pictures, drive slowly, and just enjoy the view. The “gravel” road was really just a ton of loose shale, so it would be very easy to lose control and find yourself falling down the side of the mountain. When we left Silverton, Donovan wanted to drive back through Ophir Pass to Telluride, but I quickly opted for main roads.

We’d definitely encourage you to check it out. If you feel uncomfortable driving, you can hike up there as well, but the highest point is over 11,700 feet, so if you’re a lower elevation person like us, it might take you awhile!