Passes & Canyons Blog

The road up Cumberland Pass is rough but no problem at all on a dirt bike.

Judy and I wanted to go camping and we had not been over Cottonwood Pass since they finally paved the whole thing last year. I discussed that in this post.

So we got up on the east side of Cottonwood and found a campsite. The next day we went over the top and down to Taylor Park Reservoir. The day was still early so what do we do now?

Looking at the map we could see that another road ran from the reservoir up to Tin Cup, a so-called ghost town that I thought I would never get to because I thought the only way there was over a really difficult four-wheel-drive or dirt bike pass. That’s Tin Cup Pass. But the drive from the reservoir is easy on a gravel road treated heavily with magnesium chloride. So we went.

There really wasn’t much at Tin Cup but there was a crossroads where you could go straight or else turn left. Left was over Tin Cup Pass, down to St. Elmo on the other side. We were in Judy’s Subaru Forester. We weren’t going over Tin Cup. Straight ahead, however, was Cumberland Pass and the map showed it to be in better condition than Tin Cup Pass. OK, we figured, we’ll go as far as we can and if it gets too rough that will be the time to turn around.

It’s needless to say that the drive was beautiful. Basically what you’re seeing is how this part of the world looked long before the white man ever came on the scene. Except for the road, of course.

We took it slow, and the Subaru was up to it. Along the way, however, numerous dirt bikes and ATVs went blasting past us as we pulled over to let them by. Those are definitely the kind of vehicles you want out here. We were generally going about 7 or 8 miles an hour and they must easily have been doing 20 mph or more. Of course, on the other hand, most of them were eating dust or wearing masks and goggles to keep the dust out. We enjoyed our closed windows and AC.

It was not a bad road. There were a couple times when it got rough enough I started having doubts but those stretches passed and all was fine. We got up on top of the pass and there were a slew of ATVs and dirt bikes. One of the ATVs was having problems, and this is not a place where you want to be calling AAA to. They finally got it running and that guy headed down with another behind him for security.

Up on top there were several roads going off to the surrounding hilltops and there was a group of bikes and ATVs up on one of them. Heading on down the other side the road went into a deep valley that looked like more nice riding. That goes on to Pitkin, over near Gunnison. We didn’t want to push our luck and we really didn’t have time anyway but I have no doubt it would be a great ride.

So, bottom line here, if you’re into dirt biking, and especially if you’re not an expert dirt biker, Cumberland Pass definitely gets my recommendation. Would I do it on my V-Strom? Yeah, I would. I’ve been on rougher roads than this on the V. I wouldn’t touch it on my other two bikes, though.

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