Cottonwood Pass, Colorado

Drove up to Cottonwood Pass from Buena Vista, Colorado, which is a small town at 7,965 feel elevation.

At 12,126 feet, Cottonwood Pass is the highest paved crossing of the Continental Divide in the U.S.

Buena Vista is surrounded by the highest concentration of peaks over 14,000 feet high in the US. Known as the “Collegiate Peaks”, they include Mount Harvard (14,420 ft), Mount Princeton (14,197 ft / 14,204 ft), Mount Yale (14,196 ft), Mount Columbia (14,072 ft), Mount Oxford (14,156 ft), and Mount Belford (14,203 ft). Mount Belford is not named after a college or university, but after James Burns Belford, Colorado’s first Congressman.