Colorado’s Scenic and Historic Byways: Mount Blue Sky

Our series traveling Colorado’s Scenic and Historic Byways continues up to the top of Mount Blue Sky! Mount Blue Sky Scenic and Historic Byway is the highest paved road in North America, taking visitors to the top of one of the state’s highest mountain peaks.

Mount Blue Sky Scenic and Historic Byway starts in Idaho Springs and has a total length of 49 miles. In those miles, the Byway climbs more than 7,000 feet, taking visitors through a variety of mountain landscapes before arriving near the summit of Mt. Blue Sky at an altitude of 14,130 feet. The road makes one of Colorado’s most unique mountain experiences – climbing to the top of a fourteener – accessible to almost everyone. The Byway’s corridor management plan describes the effort to create and preserve the paved road in an extreme mountain environment, only possible due to the partnership of the Colorado Department of Transportation (CDOT), the US Forest Service, Denver Mountain Parks, Clear Creek County, and other government agencies.

The Byway sits atop one of Colorado’s rarest ecosystems, the alpine tundra. A 2021 CDOT study found that decades of pavement have reshaped the permafrost and wetlands beneath and around the highway. The road and its adjacent ditches have rerouted snowmelt and rainfall, drying out some of the ecosystem’s pools while flooding others with concentrated runoff. That disruption has altered the delicate mix of mosses, sedges, and other alpine plants that depend on very specific water sources to survive. The road itself has also suffered. Heat absorbed by the pavement has thawed the permafrost beneath it, causing the roadbed to sink and buckle in places. Researchers have recommended more porous, well-ventilated road designs that let water and cold air move more naturally through the embankment, both to protect the fragile tundra ecosystem and to keep the Byway more stable in the future.

The Byway and its featured fourteener were both formerly known as Mount Evans but were renamed in 2023 to honor the Cheyenne and Arapaho people. The name “Blue Sky” reflects the Arapaho’s identity as the Blue Sky People and the Cheyenne’s annual ceremony of renewal called Blue Sky.