Am touring around Colorado this sept 08, and am fine tuning now.

Google has it possible going from Lake city to Ouray they say its 40 miles ish, and makes no mention of difficult terrain etc.

We will be in a Convertable so is this route doable. We will be coming from Gunnison so i thought the 149 route to ouray would be better as we can then take the 550 back up towards Delta on our way to Glenwood springs.

Otherwise we are back tracking a bit just to see ouray,going via montrose both ways.

Also, we will be in and around the Delta area on a sunday and wondered will we have problems with eating places being closed in these small towns etc, as we have seen a B&B in cedarsedge (by delta) that is also a LLama farm and it sounds fun, but wondered if better staying nearer larger town i.e. Delta.

Advice very welcome

I see you are back. Sunday closing is not much of an issue in the mountains. They need to make their money during the short summer tourist season so closing for a day doesn't make any sense.

Try freetrip.com for steep grade information.

I'm confused about your route Ann. Lake City is a whole lot more than 40ish miles from Ouray if you're doing it in a standard convertible. I'm not sure what route google gave you, but the only route between those 2 towns that is even close to 40 miles is the 4-wheel drive Alpine Loop Road - and the only convertible I'd do that in is a Jeep.

I can see you going from Gunnison to Lake City, but from there Hwy 149 heads southwest to Creede & South Fork. Then you'd have to get on Hwy 160 and head west to Pagosa Springs and Durango, then catch Hwy 550 up to Silverton and Ouray. Just guessing, but to me that looks like 200-250 miles from Lake City to Ouray - and you're going over the continental divide twice.

Thanks all,

Yes, I'm back and as you can see still 'fine tuning things'

Think i will give lake city to ouray a miss.

Will go to ouray from gunnison via montrose etc, and then just go back up again to head towards Delta.

from what everyone says its such a lovely drive it should not be a hardship going up and down same part of the 550.

Counting the weeks to our hol (8)

fingers crossed weather hot and sunny as its not too good here in UK lots of rain, but our grass looks lovely!!