Independence Pass, 12,095'
The Climb Up

The drive in is one thing, then you arrive at the actual bottom of the climb up to the summit. This is a long uphill stretch with three good switchbacks. There's not a lot of turnouts either as the road hugs the edge of the slope almost all the way up. Each switchback has a good turnout, probably because the folks who built this road put up signs saying no vehicles longer than 35' but they knew better: I've been up this road several times now and each time, there's someone in a huge RV towing a vehicle trying to make their way up or down in spite of the signage. One of these guys can block an actual switchback for quite a while, maneuvering his ridiculous rig around trying to make that hairpin turn (and there's three of those turns on this hill).

On the day I took these photos, it was a Saturday in late September. The leaves were changing and the road was packed in places (usually behind someone who was afraid of the edge of the road: pretty nice drop there). Never mind every SUV from Denver being out here, there were motorcycles working their way around and through the cars up and down the hill. And every now and then I came up on a group of bicyclists going up or down. It was pretty wild. At least I only came across one clown (sweating heavily) in an RV and he was going down while I was on my way up. But the trees were in color, it was a gorgeous day and the views were spectacular.