Mosquito Pass Auto Tour

Mosquito Pass Auto Tour is an interpretive drive to the 13,185-foot summit of Mosquito Pass, the highest vehicle-passable mountain pass in Colorado. The signed auto tour runs about 9.5 miles north from Fairplay to the summit, part of a longer 16.2-mile route that continues down the other side to Leadville. Built in the late 1870s during the mining boom, the road was popular from the start despite its brutal grade and rockslides, simply because it offered the shortest path between the mining camps of Fairplay and Leadville. That reputation holds today: the route is steep, rocky, and demands a high-clearance, four-wheel-drive vehicle, with the summit itself only accessible for six to eight weeks each year after the snowpack clears, typically sometime in July. Interpretive markers along the tour explain the pass's mining-era traffic and its place as one of the highest routes anywhere in the Rockies that vehicles can actually drive over, rather than just hike.

• Fairplay to summit (~9.5 miles)
• Mosquito Pass (13,185 ft, highest CO vehicle pass)
• built late 1870s
• Fairplay-Leadville mining route
• high-clearance 4WD required
• open ~6-8 weeks/year