State Highway 90 (SH 90) is a long
state highway at the western edge of
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 ...
. SH 90's western terminus is a continuation as
Utah State Route 46 (SR-46) at the
Utah
Utah ( , ) is a state in the Mountain West subregion of the Western United States. Utah is a landlocked U.S. state bordered to its east by Colorado, to its northeast by Wyoming, to its north by Idaho, to its south by Arizona, and to it ...
state border, and the eastern terminus is at
U.S. Route 550 (US 550) in
Montrose.
Route description
SH 90 begins in the west at the border with Utah where it becomes
Utah State Route 46 which continues westward to meet
US 191 about twenty miles (32 km) south of
Moab, UT. From the Utah border the road passes eastward for about through a very remote area, first along a section of
La Sal Creek, then over a pass and though
Paradox Valley
Paradox Valley is a basin located in Montrose County in the U.S. state of Colorado. The dry, sparsely populated valley is named after the apparently paradoxical course of the Dolores River—instead of flowing down the length of the valley, t ...
, where it crosses the
Dolores River Bridge near the town of
Bedrock. After leaving the valley, it joins up with
SH 141 at
Vancorum where this portion of the road ends. The road then reappears approximately eight miles west of
Montrose and travels into downtown Montrose where its western end occurs at its intersection with
US 550
U.S. Route 550 (US 550) is a spur of U.S. Highway 50 that runs from Bernalillo, New Mexico to Montrose, Colorado in the western United States. The section from Silverton to Ouray is frequently called the Million Dollar Highway. . The two sections of the road are joined by a section composed mostly of unpaved road and a brief stretch of SH 141, neither of which are officially part of SH 90. Thus the official length of the road is , but driving from one end to the other will require traveling at least . If only paved routes are used, that distance increases considerably.
History
The route was established in the 1920s without the current gap. In 1954, all was cut out except the current eastern section, and the current western section was added back in 1963. The route was also entirely paved by 1963.
Major intersections
References
External links
{{DEFAULTSORT:Colorado State Highway 090
090
Montrose, Colorado
Transportation in Montrose County, Colorado