There are many ways you can enjoy our byway. Some people spend a day or less enjoying our scenic and cultural viewsheds from the comfort of their vehicle. Other visitors may stay for a week or longer, perhaps taking a half-day to walk amongst the profuse variety of wildflowers that cover the meadows adjacent to the byway, or taking time to make side trips on the nearby Royal Gorge Train, or to visit our neighbor byway The Gold Belt Tour with its fascinating dinosaur and mining areas.

For those of you with only a short amount of time available, we suggest the following one-day itinerary. There’s no need to adhere to it strictly--in fact, the joy of scenic driving is discovering your own suprises and side-excursions! Still, if you decide to follow this itinerary, you will see a sampling of what the Frontier Pathways Byway has to offer.

Come join our pathway to adventure!

GENERAL DESCRIPTION: A 103-mile scenic and historic tour through high plains and beautiful valleys.

SPECIAL ATTRACTIONS: The historic mult-ethnic city of Pueblo with its arts and museums, historic downtown area, and famous Italian and Mexican restaurants; the hidden Wet Mountain Valley; pioneer settlements; historic high country ranches and homesteads; the lush Greenhorn Valley; camping; wildlife viewing; hiking; trout fishing; panoramic views of hundreds of miles of the high plains and of the Sangre de Cristo Mountain Range.

LOCATION: Southcentral Colorado, two hours from Denver, forty minutes from Colorado Springs, four hours from Santa Fe. The Byway is wishbone-shaped, connecting Pueblo on the north and east, Westcliffe and the Wet Mountain Valley on the west, and Colorado City on the south.

BYWAY ROUTE NUMBERS: Colorado State Highway 96, Colorado State Highway 165. Exciting loop tours are also available on county and state maintained roads including state highway 78 to the pristine mountain village of Beulah, and the Wet Mountain Valley loop tours featuring one-room schoolhouses, mining, and high country pioneer settlements.

TRAVEL SEASON: Year-round. More than 300 days of sunshine a year. Cool in summer evenings in the mountains.

CAMPING: Five campgrounds in the San Isabel National Forest on the Byway route, as well as two state campgrounds, four municipal parks (three with camping, one with camping.)

SERVICES: All traveler services in Pueblo, Westcliffe/Silvercliffe, and in the Greenhorn Valley at Colorado City.

NEARBY ATTRACTIONS: Royal Gorge and Dinosaur Museum at Canon City; Pikes Peak and Colorado Springs; the Gold Belt Tour Byway; and thousands of square miles of wildnerness areas in the Wet Mountain and Sangre de Cristo Mountain ranges.

Frontier Pathways Scenic & Historic Byway climbs from the high plains, up over Hardscrabble Canyon into the Wet Mountain Valley, and descends back into the high plains at Colorado City.

The Byway tour is equally scenic starting at Pueblo, Westcliffe, or Colorado City. Taking the route from Pueblo, start your tour in Pueblo’s historic Union Avenue District just off the 1st Street exit from Interstate 25. Attractions in Pueblo include the beautiful new historic Arkansas River Walk, shopping in the boutiques in the Union Avenue historic district, a visit to the El Pueblo Museum (under expansion construction until 2003), the elegant Rosemount House Museum, the Pueblo City Zoo and Park, the Sangre de Cristo Arts Center, fashionable victorian streets, and the fascinating ethnic neighborhoods where skilled steel workers from around the world lived and raised families for six generations until the steel industry (mostly) collapsed in Pueblo in the early 1980s.

After a full morining spent in Pueblo, we travel west on Colorado State Highway 96 four miles to the 5,000 acre Lake Pueblo State Park. The Park offers camping, boating, hiking, and fishing. The attractive indoor visitor center includes an excellent interpretive display of the environment and geology of the Upper Arkansas Valley.

We continue west on 96, enjoying beautiful vistas of Pikes Peak to the north, the twin Spanish Peaks to the south, and of the lush Wet Mountains to the west. As we climb eighteen miles west of Pueblo, we leave the High Plains life zone characterized by its short-grass prarie, and enter the Foothills ecological life zone denoted by pinon pine and juniper trees.

At the crest of Jackson Hill, twenty-two miles west of Pueblo, is a turnout to the dramatic, derelict 1873 Jackson Hill Stage Stop. From this spot we can see sixty miles east across the high plains. To the immediate west is the verdant Hardscrabble Plateau, site of some of the oldest european settlements in the Rocky Mountain West, including Buzzard’s Roost (1831) and Hardscrabble (1845.)

Passing west on 96 we pass through the attractive 1870s village of Wetmore and enter the San Isabel National Forest where we begin our 2,000’ climb up Hardscrabble Canyon into the Wet Mountains. As we enter the canyon there is a wildlife viewing area on the north side of the highway. Big horn sheep can be seen here, and, infrequently, the endangered Mexican Spotted Owl which nests in the nearby cliffs.

We reach the top of the canyon at the 36 mile marker we find ourselves in the heart of the Wet Mountain Range, surrounded by 19th century ranches and homesteads and by mountain meadows resplendent in wildflowers from May through September. Following early explorer Major John C. Fremont’s 1848 expedition route, we cross over 9,300’ Hardscrabble Divide and begin our descent into the hidden Wet Mountain Valley, one of the West’s special treasures.

Near the 46 mile marker there is an especially panoramic view of the Wet Mountain Valley from where one can see the incredible vista of the Sangre de Cristo Mountains with the historic Wet Mountain Valley at its base. From this point we view the longest range of single peaks in the world, 100 miles altogether, fifty-two peaks over 12,000’, thirteen peaks over 14,000’.

Descending on highway 96 another six miles into the Valley we enter the 1878 mining town of Silver Cliff, and, just a mile beyond, the 1881 town off Westcliffe. Traveler information is available in Westcliffe at the Chamber of Commerce office on Main Street, or, seasonally, at the old “Westcliff” Schoolhouse, where the Frontier Pathways Byway has its office. Westcliffe is a small but bustling mountain community with interesting shops that showcase local artists’ work. This is a good late lunch spot.

From Westcliffe we can choose to take a tour of the Valley’s collection of one-room schoolhouses...there are about eight still standing with the “Westcliffe” School and the Willows School listed on the National Register of Historic Places. Or we may choose to take a mining loop tour, or a tour of the Valley’s ranches and homesteads including the headquarters of the 19th century 60,000 acre Beckwith Ranch just north of town.

We can also head just south of Westcliffe three miles on Colorado State Highway 69 to a pullover which provides a good panoramic view of the site of Colorado’s first organized colony, the 1870 Colfax German Colony. Nothing of the original colony remains, but many of the families who settled with the colony still live and ranch in the Valley.

From Westcliffe, we backtrack east on highway 96 to McKenzie Junction where we head south on state highway 165 paralleling the crest of the Wet Mountain Valley range. Four miles south on highway 165 we enter the Augusta homesteading district where hardscrabble pioneers eked out a living at elevations over 9,000’ from the 1870s until World War II. Many of their old homestead buildings, now mostly vacant, are visible from the highway.

For the next twelve miles we wend our way through meadows and small gentle valleys, passing en route several old homestead districts. At the 8.5 mile mark there is a pullout that takes us to the National Register-listed Mingus Homestead, an intact example of an early pioneer mountain homestead. This is a nice spot to take a break and possibly search for wildflower varieties in the nearby meadows.

At the 18 mile mark on highway 165 we come to the small community of San Isabel on jewel-like Lake Isabel. There is a pullout with restrooms on the dam over the lake. This area is in the heart of the oldest planned recreational area in the entire national forest system. Lake Isabel offers fee camping, hiking, fishing, and, in the summer and fall, a restauran and lodging.

Descending on highway 165 from San Isabel, we glimpse beautiful views of the high plains stretching endlessly to the east, little changed from the days when buffalo and the Arapaho, Comanche and Apache made this area their home.

As we enter the Greenhorn Valley and the end of the tour (or, conversely, the beginning), we pass Greenhorn Peak, site of the early west’s largest battle when Spanish Governor de Anza battled Comanche Chief Greenhorn, defeating and killing Chief Greenhorn and his four sub-chiefs in 1779. By many accounts, more that 1,000 combatants were involved.

Byway and regional information and restrooms are available at the Cuerno Verde Rest Stop at the junction of highway 165 and Interstate 25 at Colorado City. Enjoy a cozy night's stay in this one-of-a-kind Colorado community or drive 20 minutes north to Pueblo for the night and dine at one of Pueblo’s special historic restaurants.