La Manga Pass, elevation , is a

mountain pass A mountain pass is a navigable route through a mountain range or over a ridge. Since many of the world's mountain ranges have presented formidable barriers to travel, passes have played a key role in trade, war, and both Human migration, human a ...

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 ...

Colorado Colorado (, other variants) is a state in the 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 western edge of t ...

. The pass is situated in

Rio Grande National Forest Rio Grande National Forest is a 1.86 million-acre (7,530 km²) U.S. National Forest located in southwestern Colorado. The forest encompasses the San Luis Valley, which is the world's largest agricultural alpine valley, as well as one of ...

. The pass, along with

Cumbres Pass Cumbres Pass, elevation , is a mountain pass in the San Juan Mountains in Colorado, United States. The pass is traversed by State Highway 17 (Colorado), State Highway 17 and the Cumbres and Toltec Scenic Railroad. The highway has a moderate 5.8% ...

to the southwest, is traversed by State Highway 17. It is the only highway pass west out of the San Luis Valley between

Wolf Creek Pass Wolf Creek Pass is a high mountain pass on the Continental Divide, in the San Juan Mountains of Colorado. It is the route through which U.S. Highway 160 passes from the San Luis Valley into southwest Colorado on its way to New Mexico and Arizo ...

to the north and

New Mexico ) , population_demonym = New Mexican ( es, Neomexicano, Neomejicano, Nuevo Mexicano) , seat = Santa Fe , LargestCity = Albuquerque , LargestMetro = Tiguex , OfficialLang = None , Languages = English, Spanish ( New Mexican), Navajo, Ker ...

. The pass is a watershed break between the

Conejos River The Conejos River is a tributary of the Rio Grande, approximately long,U.S. Geological Survey. National Hydrography Dataset high-resolution flowline dataThe National Map, accessed March 31, 2011 in south-central Colorado in the United States. It d ...

to the north, a tributary of the

Rio Grande The Rio Grande ( and ), known in Mexico as the Río Bravo del Norte or simply the Río Bravo, is one of the principal rivers (along with the Colorado River) in the southwestern United States and in northern Mexico. The length of the Rio G ...

, and the Rio de los Pinos (Los Pinos River) to the south, which flows through Toltec Gorge and eventually joins the Conejos River via the Rio San Antonio.

References

Mountain passes of Colorado Landforms of Conejos County, Colorado San Juan Mountains (Colorado) {{Colorado-geo-stub