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Ouray

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🎡 Attractions

Ouray

Ouray, CO · San Juan Mountains

About

Ouray sits at 7,792 feet on the floor of a box canyon, wedged so tightly between the San Juan peaks that the town earned the nickname Switzerland of America. The main street is a row of 1880s mining-boom buildings, the Wright Opera House and the Beaumont Hotel among them, with red-rock walls climbing straight up behind the rooftops. It is the northern gateway to the Million Dollar Highway, a soak in the town hot springs, and the trailhead for Box Canyon Falls, where Canyon Creek drops 285 feet into a quartzite slot.

Highlights

Historic 1880s mining-town main streetNorthern gateway to the Million Dollar HighwayOuray Hot SpringsBox Canyon Falls (285-foot drop)Switzerland of America in the San Juans

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.