Ouray or the Highway: Jeeping in Colorado

Engineer Pass is decidedly not one of them. Still, I'd seen too many middle-aged Texans in fancy new SUVs to think I needed to be an expert to drive it. For the most part, I was right. It took a moment to overcome my street-driving instincts -- to realize that a Jeep can handle obstacles that would rip the bottom out of a normal car -- but when that realization arrived, each bump became thrilling.

The engine whined, mostly in second gear, as I picked paths over deep ruts and pitted rock. My mind made constant calculations: Will I bottom out if I drive that line? Is there enough space here for that other vehicle to pass? Can I take the corner tightly, or should I go wide?

I shifted up and down according to the terrain, and the Jeep lurched steadily ahead, climbing two-foot-tall stone outcroppings and bouncing over the road's sharp rocks. The vehicle was doing all the work, but my ego was taking the credit.

I moved slowly and stopped at ruins including, among others, a sagging rail trestle for ore cars and a collapsing mill where two boilers sat rusting on a disintegrating pile of brick. Then the road climbed across the green alpine tundra, passing slow-melting pockets of snow and zigzagging up a set of switchbacks. Finally, I reached Oh! Point, an overlook near the top.

The name says it all. A collection of four-wheel-drive vehicles sat on the jagged roof of the continent, their drivers taking in a 360-degree panorama of rocks, ice and peaks more than 14,000 feet tall. Literally and figuratively, it was the high point of the day.

But one treat still remained. After turning in the Jeep, I headed to the Wiesbaden Hot Springs Spa & Lodgings, featuring a hot springs pool inside a natural cave.

Once inside, I moved between the 108-degree waters of the pool and a separate entry chamber, where a cooler spring poured over a natural flowstone. I leaned against the flowstone and let the waters run over my shoulders, basking in the humid, saunalike air.

It may not have been gnarly. But man, it was good.

Ben Brazil last wrote for Travel about Mammoth Cave National Park in Kentucky.