Yampa Bench Road
Yampa Bench Road is a scenic drive in Colorado. Within Colorado it covers roughly 25 miles. The map below shows its route. Use “Plan a drive” to open it in the Road Sorties route planner — already routing along Yampa Bench Road with scenic roads turned on, ready to add your own stops.
Yampa Bench Road is an 18-mile unpaved route inside Colorado's Dinosaur National Monument, tracing a high, flat bench above the Yampa River. It runs between Echo Park Road and the monument's southeast boundary, where county roads continue on to US Highway 40. Along the way it passes the Rial Chew Ranch, a homestead of log cabins and a mud-and-stick outbuilding left from early 20th-century ranching, along with Native American petroglyphs and the shadowed recess of Whispering Cave. Spur trails and overlooks off the road reach Castle Park, Harding Hole, and Wagon Wheel, with sweeping views down into the Yampa's canyons. This is a backcountry drive rather than a paved scenic byway: high-clearance, four-wheel-drive vehicles are recommended, the road turns impassable when wet, and it's generally closed through winter. For those who can run it in dry conditions, it's one of the monument's quieter ways to see canyon country most visitors only glimpse from the rim.
- Dinosaur National Monument
- Yampa River
- Rial Chew Ranch
- Whispering Cave
- 18 miles
- high-clearance 4WD
- Echo Park Road
Plan a drive on Yampa Bench Road →
About this drive
This is a scenic drive — a road worth taking for the views and the journey itself rather than the quickest line between two points.
Where to Stay along Yampa Bench Road
1 campground or RV park sits within about 5 miles of Yampa Bench Road.
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