I make my living behind the wheel. Most of my miles are the I-70 corridor and the run over to Aspen. But every so often the road points somewhere I don't usually go, and this spring it pointed south, all the way down to Creede.

If you've never heard of Creede, you're not alone. It sits at the dead end of a canyon in the San Juan Mountains, an old silver town that the rest of Colorado mostly drove past on the way to somewhere flashier. That's exactly why I wanted to see it. No gondola, no base village, no valet stand. Just a real mountain town that's still standing because people refused to let it fall down.

How far is it to drive from Vail to Creede?The Route

It's about 210 miles from Vail to Creede, and you should plan on something close to four and a half hours of driving without stops. This is not an interstate trip. You leave the four lanes early and spend most of the day on two-lane highway, which is the whole point.

From Vail I went south on US-24, up over the high stuff past Leadville, the highest incorporated town in the country, and down through Buena Vista to Poncha Springs. From there it's US-285 south over Poncha Pass, out into the wide-open San Luis Valley through Saguache, then a turn west at Del Norte onto US-160 to the little town of South Fork. That's where the good part starts.

The Silver ThreadSouth Fork to Creede · 21 miles

At South Fork you leave US-160 and pick up Colorado Highway 149, the Silver Thread Scenic Byway. It's the last 21 miles or so into Creede, and it runs right alongside the headwaters of the Rio Grande the whole way. The full byway carries on past Creede over the mountains toward Lake City, more than a hundred miles of it, but the stretch up the canyon to town is the one that'll have you slowing down to look.

No gondola, no base village, no valet stand. Just a real mountain town that refused to fall down.

Creede itself

The town sits boxed into the bottom of a canyon, with the cliffs closing in tight at the north end of Main Street. It was one of the last great silver booms in Colorado, and when the price of silver crashed the place nearly emptied out. What's left is the good stuff: the old Denver & Rio Grande depot, a couple of museums worth an hour, a repertory theater that's a genuine institution, and an Underground Mining Museum dug right into the rock at the edge of town.

The Vail Powder Cars Sprinter parked on Main Street in Creede, Colorado, with the town's storefronts on the left and jagged rock spires towering over the north end of the canyon.
Main Street, Creede, the rock spires close the canyon off at the north end of town.

And here's something you won't find anywhere else: the volunteer fire department is dug straight into the canyon wall. This is old mining country, folks here had the know-how to blast a bay into solid rock, so that's exactly what they did, and they park the trucks inside the mountain. If it weren't for the flags and the Mineral County Fire Protection District sign out front, you'd drive right past it for just another mine portal.

The Creede Volunteer Fire Department, built into a tunnel blasted into the rock cliff, with U.S. and Colorado flags and the Vail Powder Cars Sprinter parked alongside the town sign.
The Creede Volunteer Fire Department, trucks parked inside the mountain. Only in an old mining town.

The Bachelor Loop & the Commodore Mine17-mile historic driving tour

The reason most people come, though, is up the hill. The Bachelor Historic Loop is a 17-mile self-guided driving tour that climbs out of town through the old silver district, fourteen marked stops, ghost-town sites, ore chutes hanging off the cliffs, and mine buildings that have been weathering up there for well over a century.

A Mercedes Sprinter van parked beneath the towering timber structure of the Commodore Mine on the Bachelor Loop above Creede, Colorado, with a canyon and mountains beyond.
The Commodore Mine on the Bachelor Loop, just north of Creede. That's our Sprinter for scale, the building dwarfs it.

The showpiece is the Commodore Mine, and it's the first thing you hit heading north out of town on West Willow Creek Road. You can't miss it. It's an enormous timber structure built straight into the mountainside, one of the biggest ore producers the whole district ever had, back in the 1890s and early 1900s.

A word of caution, because I drive this stuff for a living and I'll say it plain: the east side of the loop gets steep, narrow, and rocky, there's a section the locals call the Black Pitch, and high-clearance is the smart call up there. The lower stretch past the Commodore is graded county road and easy enough, which is how the Sprinter got the photo. The old mine buildings are private property and they're not safe to climb on or go into. Look all you want from the road. Leave the history where it stands.

Worth the drive?

For a day that's mostly windshield, yes. You trade the resort polish for something older and quieter, and you get one of the prettier two-lane drives in the state on the way in and out. If you go, fill the tank in Salida or South Fork, services thin out fast once you're up the canyon, and give yourself the whole day. Creede isn't a place you rush.

— George SinkVail Powder Cars