San Juan County Road 2 - Animas Forks

We ran this trail from north to south, coming from Cinnamon, so we started on the bumpy part of the trail, I'd say a 2 in difficulty (comparing it to other trails I've done), but once you get to waypoint 3, the road turns into a pretty smooth dirt road down until where it meets Silverton. Overall, this trail is decent for a connector, to reach other trails or to see Animas Forks, and it does have some decent camping too, however I wouldn't make this a destination for offloading. Some great sunset views though!

The road starts out super smooth and gets increasingly bumpy the further up you go. I was already aired down because I came from Cinnamon Pass so it wasn’t bad but I still had to keep my speed down in order to avoid getting tossed around obnoxiously.

Glad we air down in the beginning because it was really bumpy. Could trail to access alpine loop and burns gulch.

I ran the entirety of this trail for the first time and the road itself is...very ok. It's really just a means to an end to get up to the good stuff. Animas Forks is incredible, and I would recommend this road to anyone who hasn't seen Animas Forks and is looking for either an easier trail (with less shelf portions than others), any beginner or stock vehicle, or any history buff.

Decent trail with great views. Nothing too difficult even if you’re in a Porsche convertible (see photo)!

Nice trail to see Animas Forks.

Not much to note about this trail. It's an easy link to all the alpine passes. Definitely air down to improve the ride quality.

I despise this road, it is so bumpy and dusty even when aired down. It seemingly goes on for forever

Trail has been plowed open. Please be aware that westher conditions can change the status very quickly.

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,

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.

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.

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.

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

This is a main connecting trail in the area and because of this it is heavily trafficked. It’s a relatively easy drive but it’s very rocky and bumpy so expect to go slow. There are plenty of places to camp along the trail and along the trails that connect to it. The best part of the trail is the end where it dumps you into Animas Forks, which is well worth a visit.

Road is open all the way to Animas Forks now per the San Juan County road crews.

Traveled this road from Silverton to Animas Forks. It is a gateway to several of the other trails in the area and was busy and quite dusty as a consequence of so much activity. Despite being crowded, stopping at Animas Forks was worthwhile.

Test review

Glad we aired-down in Silverton, road is just a rocky chatterbox, might lose your dental work if you have tires fully aired up.

This is really just a means to an end. It isn't very scenic and bumpy as could be near the forks. Really just a quick way to get from the alpine loop to Silverton.

We ran the road from Animas Forks to Silverton and back. Nothing difficult, but the Animas Forks end was really rough.

Dirt road that was so crowded and dusty that you could not go over 20 MPH and see. Never again! Should have gone over California Pass.

Drove from Animas Forks to Silverton to complete our trip from Lake City to Silverton through Cinnamon Pass. Easy, wide road. Lots of other vehicles. Was very dusty when we drove.

I take this road all the time to access random trails off of it, but for the first time ever I decided to go all the way into Animas Forks. I’ve been avoiding it because I figured it would be a circus, and it sure was! The ghost town is far from a ghost town in the sense that it’s like an ant hill with the number of people crawling all over it. The drive took forever because of a handful of very slow drivers with no trail etiquette. Most drivers were respectful but this area attracts drivers that have no idea what driving is like without pavement, paint, and stop lights. There was nowhere to park at Animas Forks it was so busy, but when it’s like that why would you want to park there anyway. If you’re like me you probably don’t want to drive far away into the mountains to be surrounded by more tourists than you can count. I’ll go back to what I always did and stay away from the ghost town at the end of this road.

Utilized this to get to Eureka Gulch then pushed on to Animas Forks. The waterfalls along the route made this worth the out and back alone. I gave it 4/5 simply due to the traffic and volume of people at the ghost town at the end, but hey, it's right down the road form Silverton and LOTS of people adventure there.

Good weather and gorgeous fall colors for our trip this weekend. Trail is in good shape and made for a smooth drive. Avalanche debris is awesome to see with huge trees and rocks packed into the snow along the road.

Don’t let the “County Road” fool you. This is a beautiful road leading into some of the best jeep trails in the country. The remnants of the avalanche debris was pretty amazing to see.

Road is open and in good condition. The avalanche debris field is very impressive to say the least!

The road is very busy, especially with inexperienced drivers using rental vehicles. The Jeep drivers are slow and the side by sides fast. Keep your eyes open. Many avalanches along the road, but the Grouse Gulch slide really in impressive. That snow will be around for many years.

Drove this up from Silverton in the afternoon as part of the Alpine loop. Camped in Animas on first night. Saw moose in lakes at start. Tons of downhill traffic as evening is started. Luckily most traffic passed on dusty road down low. The avalanche was awesome. Luckily we only had to stop once to let a side by side pass. Seemed like the most inexperienced drivers. Just dont be in a hurry and be patient

An aerial view of the avalanche. The single track through was causing some backups depending on the time of day with all the traffic trying to get past it.

The county announced that County Road 2 is now open all the way. There is still snow and ice on the road and the snow on the side of the road is very tall.

We found it closed just below Animas Forks after coming off California Pass.

San Juan County Road 2 is still closed. Animas Forks is accessible via County Road 110 to County Road 10 (along Cement Creek) then up to California and Hurricane Passes.

The county road is still closed in part due to the very large avalanche just below Animas Forks. You can access Animas Forks via Hurricane and California passes, but you then have to return the same way. The avalanche is massive to say the least. I was hearing 100 foot depth stories and found it hard to believe, until I saw it for myself from a mile away. These pictures were taken on the Engineer Alpine loop connector. This is the closest I got as there was no reason to travel closer as lots of other traffic was already doing that.

Given the previous comments, we stuck to an easy trail that starts off of SJCR2 between Silverton and Eureka (not listed in trailsoffroad.com). Typically this offshoot is easy, there's a very narrow shelf in places, but anything can get up it. However, there was a lot of seemingly innocuous snow that, alas, is not that easy to get through even in a capable 4x4. In what would normally be a trivial drive, we had to dig out in one place and then pull a stuck Jeep out of another. We hiked a bunch too, but you have to get creative in reaching your destination, if you can get there at all. But, the situation for SJCR2 hasn't changed from what I can tell.

From the county: Update on County Road 2 in San Juan County over in the Eureka area CR2 is now unable to be made passable in any reasonable amount of time. County road crews are working on clearing avalanche snow, rock, and tree debris from an alternate route. Hope to have safe passage in and out of the Eureka area sometime later today for passenger vehicles. Stay away from the waters, and DO NOT CROSS ROAD CLOSURES!

Per the US Forest Service County Road 2 is open to the Eureka Townsite. please be aware of snow clearing operations and there is still a very real risk of avalanches in the area. https://www.fs.usda.gov/detail/sanjuan/maps-pubs/?cid=fsbdev3_002300

The valley where Animas Forks is it currently buried in up to 120 feet of snow. They have started plowing the area, but it may not open soon since the first priorities are to assess avalanche damage. There is no time estimate for when this could open this year.

Great view and easy ride. However, the trail only open till Eureka.

Visited Animas Forks with an Isuzu group after driving Cinnamon Pass road. We used San Juan County Road 2 to return to Silverton.