Cimarron Ridge
is a ridge in the
San Juan Mountains
The San Juan Mountains is a high and rugged mountain range in the Rocky Mountains in southwestern Colorado and northwestern New Mexico. The area is highly mineralized (the Colorado Mineral Belt) and figured in the gold and silver mining industry ...
in southwestern
Colorado
Colorado (, other variants) is a state in the Mountain states, Mountain West subregion of the Western United States. It encompasses most of the Southern Rocky Mountains, as well as the northeastern portion of the Colorado Plateau and the wes ...
. The ridge runs north-south and occupies parts of
Gunnison,
Montrose,
Ouray, and
Hinsdale counties. The ridge parallels
U.S. Highway 550, and parts of the ridge can be seen from points along the highway.
Prominent peaks
![Chimney Rock Cimarron Ridge Sunset](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/b8/Chimney_Rock_Cimarron_Ridge_Sunset.jpg)
Peaks along the ridge include
Courthouse Mountain
Courthouse Mountain is a mountain summit located on the shared boundary of Hinsdale County with Ouray County, in southwest Colorado, United States. It is situated 10.5 miles east of the community of Ridgway, and south of Owl Creek Pass, ...
, elevation ,
and
Chimney Rock, elevation . Chimney Rock is known for appearing in the 1969 western motion picture ''
True Grit
True Grit may refer to:
Fiction
* ''True Grit'' (novel), a 1968 novel by Charles Portis
** ''True Grit'' (1969 film), a film adaptation by Henry Hathaway, starring John Wayne
** ''True Grit'' (2010 film), a film adaptation by the Coen Brothers, ...
'' and is considered among the most difficult peaks to climb in Colorado.
Geology
The ridge is made up of green and gray tuff
breccia
Breccia () is a rock composed of large angular broken fragments of minerals or rocks cemented together by a fine-grained matrix.
The word has its origins in the Italian language, in which it means "rubble". A breccia may have a variety of ...
and is the "erosional remains of a larger volcanic pile that surrounded several volcanoes." The
Cimarron Ridge Formation takes its name from the ridge.
References
{{Mountains of Colorado, state=collapsed
San Juan Mountains (Colorado)
Ridges of Colorado
Mountains of Gunnison County, Colorado
Mountains of Montrose County, Colorado
Mountains of Ouray County, Colorado
Mountains of Hinsdale County, Colorado