elevation
The elevation of a geographic location is its height above or below a fixed reference point, most commonly a reference geoid, a mathematical model of the Earth's sea level as an equipotential gravitational surface (see Geodetic datum § Ver ...
Sawatch Range
The Sawatch Range or Saguache RangeThe place name "Saguache” is pronounced “Sawatch” . This name derives from the Ute language noun "''sawup''" meaning "sand dunes" and is spelled using the Spanish language version of this name "Saguac ...
of the
Rocky Mountains
The Rocky Mountains, also known as the Rockies, are a major mountain range and the largest mountain system in North America. The Rocky Mountains stretch in straight-line distance from the northernmost part of western Canada, to New Mexico ...
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 ...
Gunnison National Forest
The Gunnison National Forest is a U.S. National Forest covering 1,672,136 acres (2,612.71 sq mi, or 6,766.89 km²) Quartz Creek to the south.
The pass is traversed by Forest Road 765 and can be accessed from the towns of Tincup to the north and Pitkin to the south. The road is gravel and is closed seasonally due to heavy snowfall, typically from November until May.
The Cumberland Pass road was built in 1882, connecting the mining towns of Tin Cup to the north and Pitkin to the south. The wagon road allowed ore from Tincup-area mines to be shipped to the Quartz Station of the Denver & South Park Railroad. The ore was then shipped by rail east through the
Alpine Tunnel
Alpine Tunnel is a narrow gauge railroad tunnel located east of Pitkin, Colorado on the former Denver, South Park and Pacific Railroad route from Denver to Gunnison. At an elevation of , it was the first tunnel constructed through the Conti ...
. The road was later improved by the
Civilian Conservation Corps
The Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) was a voluntary government work relief program that ran from 1933 to 1942 in the United States for unemployed, unmarried men ages 18–25 and eventually expanded to ages 17–28. The CCC was a major part of ...
in 1935 and improved again in the 1950s.
Evidence of past and present human activities can be found at Cumberland Pass.
Mining
Mining is the extraction of valuable minerals or other geological materials from the Earth, usually from an ore body, lode, vein, seam, reef, or placer deposit. The exploitation of these deposits for raw material is based on the economic ...
prospects and abandoned mines dot the landscape and a network of dirt roads and trails are popular with motorcycle, ATV, and four-wheel-drive vehicle users.