Blue Mesa Cutoff

Difficulty Rating: 1. This is a well maintained, graded road. There are some washboards, but there are no areas that are washed out or rocky.

Location: Between highway 50 at the Blue Mesa Reservoir and highway 149. This road is a few miles west of the Sapinero Mesa road and runs parallel to it.

Trailhead: The north side starts on Highway 50 36.9 miles east from the junction of Highways 550 and 50 in Montrose or 28.1 miles west from the junction of Highways 50 and 135 in Gunnison.

The south side starts on Highway 149 24.6 miles south from the junction of 50 and 149 or 20.3 miles north of Lake City.

Coordinates for the north end are 38.440026, -107.346207 (38°26'24.1"N 107°20'46.4"W). The coordinates for the south end are 38.293873, -107.218510 (38°17'37.9"N 107°13'06.6"W).

Like Sapinero Mesa, this is a short cut to get from the Montrose area to Lake City. This is an easy, relaxing drive that avoids the traffic of the pavement. The north end has a short canyon you go through that has some rock walls going up on either side of the road. This section only lasts less than a mile, but it is fun to drive next to the small cliffs. Once you are on top, it is mainly barren hills like Sapinero Mesa. The south end drops off the mesa and has a few switch backs. There are trees and many cabins at the south end.  Most of this road is on private property or an Indian reservation, so there isn't many places to stop and look around.

If you are travelling from Montrose to Lake City, the Blue Mesa Cutoff road shortens the trip quite a bit when it comes to distance. Blue Mesa Cutoff is 16.6 miles long, while if you travel on the pavement it is 43.3 miles. The road is much slower than the pavement, but according to my GPS I drove it in 36 minutes. If I didn't stop to take pictures for the blog, it would have been about 30 minutes. According to Google Maps, it would take just over 50 minutes to drive the 43.3 miles on the pavement.

Here are the GPX and KML files of our drive.

 These are the cliffs on the north side.

 There are miles and miles of barren, rolling hills on top.

On the south side you get some nice views of moutains

and start findings some pine and aspen trees.