What I am calling “the Cochetopa Crossing” is the path Colorado State Highway 114 cuts across the mountains and forests between Saguache and Gunnison. This is a beautiful area with many different types of landscape and tree cover. The Cochetopa Hills are the result of volcanic activity that created the Cochetopa Dome: a would-have-been volcano except that it never reached the surface and never erupted, it only pushed up a significant chunk of countryside. Somewhere around here there was significant lava flow because a lot of the countryside shows dikes and walls of hardened lava and the remains of eroded pinnacles.

Like most roads across the mountains of Colorado, this one also follows an old Ute hunting and migration trail. The route that is still followed today originated maybe 1,000 years ago as the ancient Indian tribes made their way across this beautiful landscape in search of good hunting grounds.

Lava flows
Evidence of lava flows, just west of Saguache
Aspens in the arm of lava pinnacles
A stand of aspens in the arm of lava pinnacles
looking east at Mt. Ouray
Looking northeast, Mt. Ouray in the distance
Heading up the hill towards North Cochetopa Pass
Heading up the hill towards North Cochetopa Pass
North Cochetopa Pass
Looking east near the summit of North Cochetopa Pass
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Cochetopa Hills
In the eastern edge of the Cochetopa Hills
 Cochetopa Hills
Looking north near the beginning of the Cochetopa Hills
 Cochetopa Hills
Looking south near Cochetopa Dome
near Cochetopa Dome
Near Cochetopa Dome
 volcanic ash
Volcanic Ash
 Volcanic ash
More Volcanic Ash