My Favorite Place to Play in the San Juan Mountains

What you need to know to enjoy and run around Ouray

My husband Morgan and I drove an hour from home last Friday afternoon for a special date and entered the northern end of the town of Ouray, which welcomes with a view of snow-capped Abrams peak forming a dramatic backdrop to the box canyon that nestles the town. When I spotted the big sign for the Ouray Hot Springs, I felt a tug of nostalgia mixed with longing, as I always do when I pass there.

“It’s still open this time of year!” I said, glancing down from the main road toward a few people in bathing suits standing next to swimming pools, steam rising in the freezing wintertime air. Part of me wanted to pull over to plunge in and soak. This desire stems from childhood, when my siblings and I frequently went on bouncy day trips from Telluride over the mountain passes in the back of Dad’s 4x4 truck, and after a day of picnicking in high-alpine basins and dodging forked lightning from an afternoon monsoon storm, we’d arrive tired in Ouray. Splashing and soaking in the warm, slightly smelly mineral-laden water soothed my young restlessness.

Back then, in the late 1970s and ‘80s, my parents called Ouray a “ticky-tacky tourist trap.” The Victorian mining town looked tired, some of its buildings literally sagging and housing empty storefronts. The fancy Beaumont Hotel, built in 1886, was boarded up and painted a faded pink, falling into disrepair. My family would visit the rock shop to look at fool’s gold and geodes, and the olde-tyme photo studio to dress in costumes for a sepia-toned portrait, but we didn’t spend much time in Ouray beyond swimming at the hot springs. We certainly didn’t think of it as a place for a nice dinner and an overnight, as my husband and I did last weekend.

Four decades later, Ouray is still a “tourist trap” on its busiest summer weekends, but better-quality purveyors of good food and good wares fill its historic buildings. It’s still more affordable, thankfully, than my Aspen-ized hometown of Telluride. But its main street looks spruced up and feels vibrant, not struggling as in my days of youth.

What follows is a quick-trip guide to some of the best of Ouray, which is located on Highway 550 in between Ridgway and Silverton and marks the halfway point and low elevation point of the Hardrock Hundred, sitting at 7700 feet. Runners and hikers, don’t miss the trail routes and races below.

Before we go any further, let me explain the right way to say “Ouray” so you sound like a local. Every time I hear “OO-ray” with the emphasis on the first syllable and an “oo” sound instead of “you,” I cringe. It’s “you-RAY.” Say, “hooray for Ouray” in a way that rhymes, and you’ve got it right.

The town is named for Chief Ouray, leader of the Utes who was fluent in English, Spanish, and other Native languages, making him a skilled negotiator with the U.S. government. His legacy as a peacemaker is complicated because some of his peers saw him as too compromising and blamed him for the loss of Ute land. A landmark agreement in 1873 between the Utes, represented by Chief Ouray, and the government transferred 3.7 million acres of the San Juan Mountains from the tribe in exchange for $25,000 annually to the Ute nation and a salary of $1000 annually to Chief Ouray, who died in 1880. That agreement opened the mountains to prospectors, sparked the mining boom that started in the mid-1870s, and led to the founding of Silverton and Telluride. (For more regional history of the town and mountains along the Hardrock Hundred route, including Ouray, check out this presentation I made last summer.)

Chief Ouray, front row seated second from right, next to his wife Chipeta, after signing the 1873 Brunot Agreement that transferred much of the San Juan Mountains out of Ute ownership and opened the high country to gold and silver mining. Railroad magnate Otto Mears, who played a key role in developing southwest Colorado and built the railroad to Telluride, is seated in the middle row on the far right.

New glory in old haunts

Morgan and I checked into the Beaumont for a night, which was restored and reopened in 2003 with its brick and stone exterior back to its natural color (no more pink paint). We admired the carved wooden grand staircase in the lobby, the leaded stained-glass windows, and the 19th-century piano on display. Our lovely room had high-quality linens and traditional Victorian furnishings.

A stock photo of Ouray’s Beaumont Hotel from this website.

How it looked circa 1890.

Then we headed to the newly renovated Western Hotel from 1891 for an upscale but unpretentious meal at their wood-fired grill. As I savored charred cauliflower and mushroom risotto in the hotel’s Cougar Bar—so named because a stuffed big cat is on display mid-stride above the saloon’s original bar—I marveled at the hotel’s transformation. We had stayed there for an overnight in 2015 when it literally was falling apart, likely the cheapest and dustiest hotel in town then. It went through a three-year makeover and reopened in 2023.

The Western Hotel and Grill as it looks now.

Hanging out in Ouray’s ice park, winter or summer

That’s me geared up and on belay to climb one of the innumerable ever-changing waterfalls in the Ouray Ice Park.

We stayed in Ouray not only for a fun night out, but also so we could wake up early and get to the Ouray Ice Park as soon as it opened for a half day of ice climbing. It was my fourth time ice climbing, and I’m “hooked” and couldn’t “pick” a better spot to do it. Morgan and I still aren’t proficient enough to do it on our own, and we haven’t (yet) invested in our own gear, so we once again hired a great guide from Mountain Trip.

I don’t have a climbing background, yet I find ice climbing fun and thrilling, with a just-right level of challenge. The Narnia-like setting is stunningly beautiful, created by a system of pipes that sprays and freezes water into curtains of cascades. These photos show Morgan getting to the top of a tricky vertical column about 100 feet up, and me finding my pick and toe holds midway up a line.

In summer, the melted ice park converts to via ferrata routes made from cables and metal holds. I have not yet done Ouray’s (I’ve only done the one in Telluride), but last summer my husband took our daughter and her boyfriend to the Ouray Via Ferrata to try it, using Mountain Trip again for guiding. They raved about it and said Ouray’s VF offers more variety in terms of direction and movement than Telluride’s VF (which is a hair-raising horizontal traverse on a rock wall several hundred feet above ground).

These photos show my husband climbing below my daughter’s feet, and her boyfriend embarking on a cable crossing. In case you’re wondering why the river runs yellow, it’s due to upstream abandoned mines polluting it with minerals. Fortunately, most of the side streams on Ouray’s mountainsides run clear, and I use a water filter to drink from them while running, but not from the main river.

So you want to run around Ouray? Good luck, prepare to hike

I love the trails around Ouray and frequently make the extra effort to get from Telluride to trek them, but to me they feel even less runnable than those around Telluride. The slopes generally are steeper, the footing looser. When I “run” routes in and around Ouray, the running usually is confined to dirt roads such as Camp Bird Road and County Road 17 (which goes north toward Ridgway). Any singletrack quickly devolves into a hard hike with trekking poles in use to prevent slipping on the scrabbly descents. I’ve learned to always budget more calories, hydration, and time for Ouray trails, because the pace always is slower than I optimistically plan.

Me with my dog Daisy at the top of Bridge of Heaven above Ouray, both of us in orange because it was hunting season. The route features about 4800 feet of climbing in a little over four miles (if started at Old Horsethief Trail). You can take a shorter route to it, with less vert, by starting at a trailhead up Dexter Creek Road aka County Road 14.

My favorite trails that lead to summits—including Bridge of Heaven, Twin Peaks, and Hayden Pass—can be found on the Ouray 100 map (linked below in list of races). The Silvershield Trail (also part of the Ouray 100) is not to be missed because a portion of it features smooth, wide swaths of rock indented with shallow round pools. Why is that rock shaped that way? Because dinosaurs left footprints that are fossilized!

Another favorite route, the Bear Creek Trail to Yellow Jacket Mine out and back, starts at the Highway 550 tunnel trailhead just south of Ouray. This segment is part of the Hardrock Hundred, and it’ll be dark at night when I traverse it during the race this July. I’ll be exceedingly careful not to trip and fall, because the drop-off plunges down a deep gorge. This trail may spook those who are nervous of heights and exposure.

A sliver of the Bear Creek Trail above Ouray (not to be confused with the other Bear Creek Trail above Telluride). The thin ribbon of trail is beautiful but features a potentially deadly drop-off, so run and hike with caution.

For a guide to Ouray trails, you can look at the maps for any of these races, which are organized here chronologically with dates for 2025.

• Skypilots Ouray Big Backyard Ultra, May 17: This is a Backyard Ultra last-person-standing format with an easy 4.167 route on Oak Street next to Fellin Park (the park next to the hot springs). Imagine running it for 100 miles or more; some do!

• Ouray 100, July 18, and its 52-mile version (the second half of the 100’s route), Sept. 13. Harder even than Hardrock, the Ouray 100 features over 40,000 feet of vertical gain. I attempted it in 2018 and DNF’ed around mile 66. It’s a monkey on my back. The route’s segments make great day hikes and long runs, however.

• Imogene Pass Run, Sept. 6. This classic 17-mile point-to-point race from downtown Ouray to downtown Telluride follows an old mining road, not single-track trail, and tops out at 13,100 feet. Registration opens June 1 at 6 a.m. Mountain time and will sell out within minutes, so mark your calendar and set an alarm if you want to get a spot.

• Ouray Mountain Trail Run, Sept. 25: This low-key locals’ race features a half-marathon loop that’s an excellent introduction to the town’s Perimeter Trail and some off-shoots and high points from the Perimeter Trail.

If you’re in Ouray on a Thursday night, you also can drop into the weekly trail run at 5 p.m. organized by my friend Christina. Info on the Ouray Trail Runners FB page.

For further reading

Read about the incredible old-school ultrarunner who started the Ouray Backyard Ultra and co-directs other crazy under-the-radar adventure runs around Ouray:

The Mindset and Character Behind Backyard Ultras

And of course I recommend my grandfather’s memoir, One Man’s West by David S. Lavender, for the best storytelling and history of a piece of Ouray’s past. He arrived in Ouray in the winter of 1932, rented a horse from the livery stable (the boarded-up red barn from the 1880s still standing on Main Street), and rode up to Camp Bird Mine to report for work. He chronicled the harrowing experience of working underground with trenchant descriptions lightened by dry humor. First published in 1943, it’s remarkable and a testament to its popularity that this book has been in print ever since. The latest edition’s cover features a pic of my dad as a toddler with Grandpa, both of them in the canyon country west of Telluride near the town of Nucla, where he ranched in the mid-1930s.

Have you been to Ouray? Share your favorite trail or other experience in the comments below.