Gravel pass under Chimney Rock and Courthouse Mountain. Owl Creek Pass is a easy 15.5-mile off-road trail in the San Juan Mountains of Colorado, east of Ridgway, topping out at 10,115 ft. It is usually open June to October.
Know before you go
- Owl Creek Pass · 10,115 ftMile 8.9
- Chimney Rock → · PeakMile 9.2
Chimney Rock is an 11,781-foot rock pillar just south of Owl Creek Pass, in the Uncompahgre Wilderness.
- Courthouse Mountain → · PeakMile 9.2
Courthouse Mountain is a 12,152-foot peak south of Owl Creek Pass, next to Chimney Rock.
How to get there
- DirectionsStart (mile 0)Start of the trailGPS 38.19245, -107.64510
- DirectionsEnd (mile 15.5)End of the trailGPS 38.20249, -107.51857
We don't have reliable trailer parking details for this trail yet.
History
Owl Creek Pass is a gravel road over a 10,114-foot pass east of Ridgway, in the Uncompahgre National Forest. The route was once called the Cimarron Cutoff Trail, and Otto Mears used parts of it as toll roads. Hollywood came here too: Chimney Rock, just south of the pass, appears in the final shootout of the 1969 film True Grit.
- The pass separates Owl Creek on the west from the West Fork of the Cimarron River on the east.
- Chimney Rock also appears in the 1962 film How the West Was Won.
- Much of True Grit (1969) was filmed in Ouray County, around Ridgway and Ouray.