U.S. Route 285 (US 285) is the section north-south highway in Colorado that starts at the New Mexico state line and ends at

I-25 Interstate 25 (I-25) is a major Interstate Highway in the western United States. It is primarily a north–south highway, serving as the main route through New Mexico, Colorado, and Wyoming. I-25 stretches from I-10 at Las Cruces, New Mexic ...

, US 87, and SH 30 in

Denver Denver () is a consolidated city and county, the capital, and most populous city of the U.S. state of Colorado. Its population was 715,522 at the 2020 census, a 19.22% increase since 2010. It is the 19th-most populous city in the Unit ...

Route description

Heading north from the Colorado border, US 285 passes through the main part of the

San Luis Valley The San Luis Valley is a region in south-central Colorado with a small portion overlapping into New Mexico. The valley is approximately long and wide, extending from the Continental Divide on the northwest rim into New Mexico on the south. It co ...

, eventually reaching

Alamosa Alamosa is a home rule municipality and the county seat of Alamosa County, Colorado, United States. The city population was 9,806 at the 2020 United States Census. The city is the commercial center of the San Luis Valley in south-central Colorad ...

. As the highway heads north, it begins to ascend to the northern end of the valley and eventually climbs over

Poncha Pass Poncha Pass (9,010 ft/2,745 m) is a mountain pass in South-Central Colorado (USA). It lies between the San Luis Valley to the south and the valley of the Arkansas River to the north, and is one of the lowest mountain passes in the state. I ...

, elevation , and drops sharply down the other side into the Arkansas River Valley. The highway brushes Salida and follows the Arkansas River north up the valley, then takes a sharp eastward turn just before the small town of

Buena Vista Buena Vista, meaning "good view" in Spanish, may refer to: Places Canada *Bonavista, Newfoundland and Labrador, with the name being originally derived from “Buena Vista” *Buena Vista, Saskatchewan *Buena Vista, Saskatoon, a neighborhood in ...

. 285 then climbs over

Trout Creek Pass Trout Creek Pass, elevation , is a mountain pass located in the Rocky Mountains of south-central Colorado in the United States. The pass sits atop the southern end of the Mosquito Range on the Park- Chaffee county line, between South Park (the h ...

, elevation , and enters the high-altitude

South Park ''South Park'' is an American animated sitcom created by Trey Parker and Matt Stone and developed by Brian Graden for Comedy Central. The series revolves around four boys Stan Marsh, Kyle Broflovski, Eric Cartman, and Kenny McCormickand th ...

basin. A few miles north, the highway passes through

Fairplay FairPlay is a digital rights management (DRM) technology developed by Apple Inc. It is built into the MPEG-4 Part 14, MP4 multimedia file format as an encrypted Advanced Audio Coding, AAC audio layer, and was used until April 2009 by the company ...

and the historic

South Park City South Park City is an open-air museum located at the west end of Front Street in the town of Fairplay in Park County, Colorado. Open from May 15 through October 15, the museum is a historic reconstruction of a mining town from the days of the Co ...

site, then reaches its highest elevation: , at the summit of Red Hill Pass. US 285 then leaves the

basin and climbs over

Kenosha Pass Kenosha Pass, elevation , is a high mountain pass located in the Rocky Mountains of central Colorado in the United States. The pass is located in the Rocky Mountains southwest of Denver, Colorado, just northeast of the town of Fairplay, Colora ...

, elevation , and skirts the south side of the

Mount Evans Mount Evans is the highest peak in the Mount Evans Wilderness in the Front Range of the Rocky Mountains of North America. The prominent 14,271-foot (4,350 m) fourteener is located southwest by south ( bearing 214°) of Idaho Springs in Clear C ...

massif as it descends its way through the foothills range towards Denver. As the highway leaves 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 in ...

and reaches Denver's southwest suburbs, it becomes

Hampden Avenue State Highway 30 (SH 30), alternatively known as Hampden Avenue, Havana Street, 6th Avenue, and Gun Club Road is a state route in the independent city and county of Denver and the city of Aurora, Colorado, Aurora in Arapahoe County, Colorado ...

, an important artery in the Denver metro area, then reaches its northern terminus at

. On March 14, 2008 both houses of the Colorado legislature, in a unanimous vote, named the section between Kenosha Pass and

C-470 State Highway 470 (C-470, SH 470) is a state highway located in the southwestern portion of the Denver Metro Area. It is also the southwestern portion of the Denver Metro area's beltway. SH 470 begins at US 6 in Golden and heads south interchangi ...

the Ralph Carr Memorial Highway.

History

The short segment between US 50 at Salida and US 24 at

closely parallels the original U.S. Route 650, which was designated in 1926, but eliminated in 1936 when US 285 was commissioned along its present extent from Sanderson to Denver, mostly replacing state-numbered highways. Between Bailey and

Como Como (, ; lmo, Còmm, label=Comasco dialect, Comasco , or ; lat, Novum Comum; rm, Com; french: Côme) is a city and ''comune'' in Lombardy, Italy. It is the administrative capital of the Province of Como. Its proximity to Lake Como and ...

, US 285 mostly follows the route of the

Denver, South Park and Pacific Railroad The Denver, South Park, and Pacific Railroad (later called the Denver, Leadville and Gunnison Railway) was a historic narrow gauge railroad that operated in Colorado in the western United States in the late 19th century. The railroad opened up the ...

, part of the original

narrow gauge A narrow-gauge railway (narrow-gauge railroad in the US) is a railway with a track gauge narrower than standard . Most narrow-gauge railways are between and . Since narrow-gauge railways are usually built with tighter curves, smaller structu ...

transcontinental railroad A transcontinental railroad or transcontinental railway is contiguous railroad trackage, that crosses a continental land mass and has terminals at different oceans or continental borders. Such networks can be via the tracks of either a single ...

Gallery

Junction list

References

External links

*{{commons category-inline Colorado 85-2 Transportation in Conejos County, Colorado Transportation in Alamosa County, Colorado Transportation in Rio Grande County, Colorado Transportation in Saguache County, Colorado Transportation in Chaffee County, Colorado Transportation in Park County, Colorado Transportation in Jefferson County, Colorado Transportation in Arapahoe County, Colorado Transportation in Denver