San Juan County Road 2

3.3/5 (31 reviews)
Silverton, Colorado (SanJuan County)
Last Updated: 12/27/2022

Trail Information

Highlights

San Juan County Road 2 is a connector road between the town of Silverton and Animas Forks. It provides access to numerous campgrounds, both public and commercial, and popular four-wheel-drive roads such as Burns Gulch, Maggie Gulch, Picayne Gulch, California Pass, Engineer Pass and Cinnamon Pass (the Alpine Loop) . Animas Forks, an historic uninhabited town, is an attraction unto itself. Numerous buildings have been restored to near-period condition, and plentiful interpretive markers describe history of the structures and the persons who once inhabited them. Ample parking is available at Animas Forks, and there are public restrooms on the south end of the parking area.

Trail Difficulty and Assessment

Trail Navigation

Trail Reviews

3.3/5 (31)
1300
Open
Rated 4/5
Visited: 09/10/2022
Difficulty Accuracy: Spot On

Meh - nothing crazy about this access road to the greater Alpine Loop trail system. Road was very bumpy and dusty unfortunately but gets the job done,
Open
Rated 4/5
Visited: 07/18/2022
Difficulty Accuracy: Spot On

Took this route to Engineer Pass in order to bypass the Mineral Creek portion of that trail. CR-2 is mostly just a very rough and wide country road until it gets to waypoint three. Past the campground and store it does go through a very shelfy spot, which I wasn't expecting, and a thick little fog bank made it really interesting. The road is very rough all the way to Animas Forks and I'd recommend airing down when you leave Silverton even though it's not technical at all. Very pretty views all the way.
Open
Rated 5/5
Visited: 07/13/2022
Difficulty Accuracy: Spot On

Not really a trail but is a very scenic drive, If you want to avoid the harder part of engineer pass, you can take this road and get to engineer pass or cinnamon pass from here. We started in Ouray and ended up in Silveton, Animas River was a fun place to stop for lunch after doing cinnamon pass.
Open
Rated 2/5
Visited: 07/04/2022
Difficulty Accuracy: Spot On

After concluding our trip along Cinnamon Pass, and visiting the ghost town of Aminas Fork (worth the visit if you're into history), this route represented the "easy" way out of the deep mountain trails. We encountered lots of OHV traffic and observed only a handful of dispersed camping sites just south of Animas Fork, all of which were taken. The scenery is interesting (waterfalls, abandoned mines, snowbank creating a tunnel on the river, marmots galore).

The ride down the road was a very dusty experience because of all the traffic driving down with us and coming up towards us. The road is very rocky and rough in spots requiring slower progress than we anticipated based the rating. To avoid braking, we kept it in low 4 the entire way down until waypoint 3. Don't expect to hurry down this route. It's a bit of a slow roll. Expect to encounter dust. After waypoint, 3, you can make better time into Silverton.

Open
Visited: 06/21/2022

FYI the town of Silverton voted to ban OHVs in their town limits. While it doesn’t technically affect this trail, countless people including myself used to park trailers in town and drive an OHV straight from a hotel or restaurant. You can no longer do that, so my 2 trips to Silverton this summer are changing/cancelling. I wasn't even planning on taking my OHV this summer but I cant support things like this. https://silvertoncolorado.com/ohvrules https://townofsilverton.colorado.gov/ohv-atv-info

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