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Mount Blue Sky

Photo: mark byzewski / CC BY 2.0 · source

⛰️ Mountains

Mount Blue Sky

Idaho Springs, CO · Front Range

About

Renamed from Mount Evans in 2023, this 14,266-foot Front Range giant lets you drive nearly to the top. The Mount Blue Sky Scenic Byway climbs 28 paved miles from Idaho Springs past Echo Lake and Summit Lake, the highest paved road in North America, gaining over 7,000 feet to a turnaround just below the peak. Mountain goats pick across the tundra, ancient bristlecone pines twist along the slopes, and on a clear morning the plains roll out a hundred miles east.

Highlights

Highest paved road in North America14,266-foot summit you can nearly drive toMountain goats and bighorn sheep on the tundraSummit Lake and Echo Lake along the bywayAncient bristlecone pines on Mount Goliath

Getting there

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The Rocky Mountains21 places

The Rocky Mountains

Alpine lakes, fourteeners, and golden aspen along the spine of the West. The Rockies at their most iconic: the Maroon Bells mirrored in their lake, the Tetons rising straight off the valley floor, Glacier's Going-to-the-Sun Road, the red spires of the Garden of the Gods, and Idaho's serrated Sawtooths over Redfish Lake. From Colorado's San Juans to the Wyoming Tetons, Montana's Glacier, and the Idaho high country, with high passes and old mining towns in between.