Ophir Pass Trail

The Ophir Pass Trail is one of the popular high mountain 4WD roads in the Telluride area in southwest Colorado. Ophir is a small mountain hamlet a few miles east of Highway 145, north of Lizard Head Pass and south of Telluride.

I started hiking at the beginning of the rough mountain road just past the end of the second group of the side by side mountain houses in Ophir. The lower part of the road passes through thick forest of Aspens, firs and spruces. The Ophir area has many signs of past mining activity. From this starting point it is about 3 miles to the top of Ophir pass with an elevation gain from about 9760 feet to 11,789 feet at the pass.

The trail is single lane with some wide spots to allow vehicles to pass. The main mountains to the south are called Ulysses S. Grant Peak and South Lookout Mountain, both over 13,000 feet. The Yellow Mountain group that is visible from Lizard Head Pass is also visible as are the two 14er Wilsons and the Lizard Head is in the distance. There is a swampy area down below that has a side trail leading to it.

About 20 vehicles passed by during my hike. Most were coming from the east with a few climbing from the west behind me. In the scree area near the pass I saw a couple of the small rabbit like Pikas that mountain hikers like to see. In late June there were patches of snow along the highest section of the route, but the road was clear and mostly dry.

On the north side I could see the track of the very steep Blixt Trail switch backing over the top of Oscar’s Pass. The Blixt Trail is an unmarked side trail off of the Ophir Pass Trail starting about 1.5 miles east of the start of the mountain road. It connects to the Wasatch Trail and then down into Telluride.

The spectacular scenery continues on the east side of Ophir Pass. It looked like the east side approach from Highway 550 near Silverton was more easily drivable that the west side approach. It took me 2:00 hours to climb the 3 miles and 2000 feet from Ophir to the top of the pass. My total hike was 3:45 hours for the 6 miles. I hiked on a 55 F late June morning. As often happens in the mountains, the bright blue morning sky started to cloud up into afternoon thundershowers starting just as I finished about 1:00 PM. I carried 3 liters of water and drank 2 of them.