Unaweep/Tabeguache Scenic and Historic Byway
Colorado Scenic & Historic Byway 130 mi in Colorado.
About the Unaweep/Tabeguache Scenic and Historic Byway
A fabulous journey through history, geology, culture and nature awaits you on the Unaweep-Tabeguache Scenic and Historic Byway. Consisting of Highways 141 and 145, the vast scenery along this byway will keep you inspired along your journey. Unaweep Canyon knives through the soft red sandstone of the Uncompahgre Plateau all the way to Precambrian times. Ancient rivers silted the rock away, exposing hundreds of millions of years of the geologic record (including fossils of dinosaurs and early amphibians). Other secrets of the earth were ferreted out by miners with picks and shovels. The canyon witnessed a copper boom around the turn of the century; decades later, the U.S. Army processed ore from nearby Uravan to produce the uranium used in the first atomic bombs. Above all, this ageless desert region offers sheer scenic wonder - striated cliffs towering a thousand feet overhead, raging streams, and boundless skies.
Colorado Department of Transportation's own description, in its words. Byway page on codot.gov.
Camping along the byway
- Mile 101 · 4.7 mi offCottonwood Ledges Campground · Bureau of Land Management · 14 sites
- Mile 105 · 4.4 mi offRockhouse Ledges Campground · Bureau of Land Management
- Mile 120 · on the roadLower Beaver Campground · Bureau of Land Management · 3 sites
- Mile 128 · on the roadCaddis Flats Campground · Bureau of Land Management
- Mile 130 · 3.3 mi offFall Creek Campground · Bureau of Land Management
Public campgrounds within 5 miles of the road as the crow flies, in order along the byway; each one's page has its facts, season and weather by month.
About this page's facts
The line is the Federal Highway Administration's scenic byways layer (HEPGIS, a snapshot of 2022-06-24, a US government work), cut at the state line and simplified for the map; the length is the line's. The designation is the program's own: the national tiers from FHWA's America's Byways roster, the rest from the layer's designation field. Road conditions, closures and seasonal gates change: check the agency's own page and the state's road conditions before you go.