Legendary Landmarks

From alpine lakes to the zigzags of wagon road switchbacks, Rollins Pass is an A-to-Z landscape of elevation, history, and legacy. Each feature across this high-mountain corridor tells a story shaped by geology, grit, and generations of use. These are more than scenic stops; they are legendary landmarks, bearing witness to Indigenous lifeways, pioneer ambition, and feats of early engineering. What endures here are not just the structures or scars in the land, but the layered memory of passage across Colorado’s storied Continental Divide.

GIANT’S LADDER & LADORA | ROLLINS PASS EAST | GILPIN COUNTY, COLORADO

Giant’s Ladder: The Steep Climb to the Continental Divide

On the eastern approach to Rollins Pass, trains once scaled the mountainside using an audacious feat of engineering known as Giant’s Ladder—a series of three steep rungs, or switchback-like ascents, each helping trains claw their way up the Atlantic slope of the Continental Divide.

The route gained four feet of elevation for every 100 feet traveled, pushing the physical limits of adhesion railroading. On these 4% grades, every ton carried an additional 80 pounds of resistance due to gravity and friction. This wasn’t just steep—it was economically draining: by 1920, operating over Rollins Pass cost the Moffat Road the equivalent of more than $10 million per year in today’s dollars.

To help navigate the rugged terrain, wooden trestles were built to span natural chasms. One such trestle, now long since dismantled, stretched 288 feet across the gap on the first rung. These structures were crafted without computers, lasers, or GPS—just surveying skill and sheer resolve. Today, little remains, but the grade still tells the story, etched into the earth and visible from satellite imagery. A subtle indentation along the otherwise straight roadbed halfway up the first rung marks the spot where a trestle once soared.

The first and second rungs rounded a knoll near the now-silent community of Ladora—not to be confused with nearby Eldora. Here, the J.R. Quigley Lumber Co. operated a sawmill and spur track, loading raw timber onto waiting railcars in 1904.

From high above the valley floor in Tolland, visitors looking up toward the Giant’s Ladder are greeted each year by a sweeping canvas of wildflowers in spring, followed by the blazing golden hues of aspen in autumn. Despite the abandonment of the Rollins Pass rail route, trains still echo through the valley, with modern locomotives humming through the nearby Moffat Tunnel. Yet on quiet days, it’s easy to imagine a different kind of train—one that fought gravity and time, winding upward on timber trestles and steep grades, rung by rung, toward the Continental Divide.

YANKEE DOODLE LAKE | ROLLINS PASS EAST | BOULDER COUNTY, COLORADO

Yankee Doodle Lake: Lore, Labor, and Legend on the Divide

Perhaps no place on Rollins Pass is more iconic—or more misunderstood—than Yankee Doodle Lake. Tucked into the high-alpine landscape and long encircled by legend, this striking lake has anchored wagon routes, railroad curves, mining ambitions, and more than a few stories that stretch the boundaries of believability.

The lake first was mentioned in published writing in 1873, when John Quincy Adams Rollins described a town called Yankee Doodle at a place he referred to as Lake Jennie. While some later mistook this for modern-day Jenny Lake, Forest Service archaeologists and historians have clarified that Rollins was, in fact, describing Yankee Doodle Lake. The topography and route descriptions match, and the wagon road at that time traveled near Guinn Mountain—not Jenny Lake.

By the 1880s, mining activity took root. The Newport Mining and Manufacturing Company filed claims near the lake in 1882, but the 1893 repeal of the Sherman Silver Purchase Act triggered a slow economic decline. In 1904, the arrival of the railroad transformed the site: the Moffat Road curved around the lake’s shore, reshaping the landscape to support trains climbing toward the summit. On March 29, 1904, “Among the reports are that a large summer hotel is to be built in Boulder Park during the coming summer and another is to the effect that the Moffat Road people are figuring on the erection of a large summer hotel to be located near Yankee Doodle Lake.” Though the hotel never materialized, the idea points to an early vision for the area—not just as a transit corridor, but as a place to linger. That spirit lived on at the lake itself.

Of interesting note, historical photographs reveal that a framed image of Yankee Doodle Lake rested atop David Moffat’s desk, a classic Louis McClure view captured from Guinn Mountain. The image’s presence suggests that this high-country landscape was not only significant to Moffat’s vision but personally cherished by him: a place beloved by many, Moffat included.

Yankee Doodle Lake became a midpoint for workers and wanderers. In winter, trains arced along its icy shores. In summer, off-duty railroad crews returned to fish—some with rods, others with leftover dynamite, seeking “instant success.” Today, the rails are gone, but the curvature remains—a trunnion of the Moffat Road’s elegant alignment through the mountains.

The lake’s serenity belies its hazards. In the early 2000s, an avalanche triggered by backcountry skiers roared down into Yankee Doodle Lake, punching through ten inches of ice and generating a ten- to twelve-foot wave across the far shore. Two skiers were swept into the lake and one survived—a harrowing reminder that, even in calm weather, Rollins Pass remains avalanche-prone and unforgiving.

In 2021, we hiked the area with Dr. Holly Norton, Colorado’s State Archaeologist and Deputy State Historic Preservation Officer, to document both ancient Indigenous use and overlooked evidence from the 1860s wagon road era. The lake, long known to Native peoples and 19th-century road builders alike, has served as a waypoint for thousands of years. Lithic scatter, tool-making evidence, and route alignments reveal that this place is far more than just scenic—it is layered with human history, from pre-contact through pioneer to railroading eras.

Stories still swirl around its depths. Locals whisper about a submerged wagon, a derailed locomotive, even a sunken airplane. All variations begin the same way: “if the light is just right.” In truth, nothing rests beneath the surface but reflected sky and memory—a mirror for the traveler, and a quiet witness to centuries of passage, change, and imagination high atop the Continental Divide.

JENNY LAKE & DIXIE SIDING | ROLLINS PASS EAST | BOULDER COUNTY, COLORADO

Jenny Lake: Steam, Slogans, and Sidings at the Summit

Near the upper reaches of Rollins Pass, the near-perfect circular body of water known as Jenny Lake—also referred to historically as Dixie Lake—played a quiet but essential role in the operation of the Moffat Road. Though often mistaken as man-made due to the presence of a small dam used to supply water for steam locomotive boilers, Jenny Lake is natural. Its modification to support rail operations led to decades of confusion in historical texts, many of which incorrectly describe it as an artficial reservoir.

Nearby stood Dixie Siding—here, crews paused to conduct mandatory safety inspections—placing bare hands on every wheel to check for overheating. Any wheels too hot to touch, or visibly glowing red, triggered an enforced cool-down period, halting operations until deemed safe to proceed.

Jenny Lake also played a part in the marketing spectacle that surrounded the Moffat Road. Just uphill from the lake, tourists would encounter a billboard that urged them to “Telegraph your friends from Corona—the highest standard gauge railway station in the world.” It was both an invitation and a declaration. That sign, like the scenic views it advertised, was part of a broader promotional campaign crafted by Frederick Bonfils, the Denver newspaper magnate behind memorable slogans like “Top of the World” and “From Winter’s Snows to Summer’s Glow.”

While trains labored toward the summit, Jenny Lake quietly reflected the power and poetry of the route—a high-altitude outpost where machinery was cooled, passengers were dazzled, and the Rockies were transformed into a destination.

NEEDLE’S EYE TUNNEL | ROLLINS PASS EAST | BOULDER COUNTY, COLORADO

Needle’s Eye Tunnel: The Last Standing Tunnel on Rollins Pass

At 11,350 feet above sea level, where the alpine tundra gives way to fractured stone and sweeping views, the Needle’s Eye Tunnel threads through the backbone of the Continental Divide. Just 170 feet long, this short but storied underpass—Tunnel No. 32—is the last remaining tunnel still standing on Rollins Pass.

The tunnel was hastily bored through igneous and metamorphic rock in 1903, just before the first trains crossed the Divide. Blasted at high elevation with rudimentary equipment and excessive explosives, the tunnel’s very construction introduced long-term instability. As the Moffat Road opened in 1904, trains soon began to “thread the eye of the needle,” passing through the short, narrow corridor before curving toward the summit at Corona Station.

Needle’s Eye Tunnel endured decades of intense freeze-thaw cycles, snowloads, and structural pounding. In 1979, after standing for 75 years, the tunnel suffered a significant rockfall that closed the connection between both sides of the pass. It remained shut until a large, multi-agency rehabilitation project in the mid- to-late 1980s added wire mesh and long rock dowels, aiming to stabilize the interior. This approach was chosen over proposals to use shotcrete or timbering, which would have obscured the preserved soot along the tunnel walls—physical evidence of early 20th-century railroading ingenuity still visible today. Despite the nearly decade of effort, tragedy followed.

In 1990, a group of Denver firefighters passed through the tunnel on a summer Jeep tour when a massive rockfall occurred inside. Assistant Fire Chief Tom Abbott—a U.S. Navy veteran—was seriously injured and later underwent a below-knee amputation. “I was lucky the firefighters with me had what it takes. They and two civilians stood in there while the ceiling was still falling and dug me out of the pile of ‘coffee-table-sized rocks,’” Abbott later recounted. A post-incident report cited faulty restoration work, inconsistent spacing of rock bolts, and temperature-driven rock instability as contributing factors. The tunnel has remained closed indefinitely since.

The tunnel’s history is layered in blood and stone. A derailment inside Needle’s Eye Tunnel was reported in the Oak Creek Times just over a decade after opening. More chillingly, the Steamboat Pilot once recounted a construction blast gone awry: “A road contractor once saw 60 Swedes carried out in baskets, killed when a charge of powder exploded prematurely in boring this tunnel.” Additional heartbreaking construction news stories include:

• “Five men were seriously injured Wednesday morning [June 29, 1904] in the tunnel near Yankee Doodle Lake on the Moffat Road, by picking out a missed hole. James Tulley had his left hand blown off, also four fingers on the right hand and the other men were seriously injured by the flying rocks and dirt, but their injuries are not considered as being dangerous.”
• “John Murphy was almost instantly killed and George Watson was so seriously injured that he died the same night, as the result of a premature explosion on the grade above tunnel camp near Yankee Doodle lake, on the Moffat road Friday afternoon. Both men were engaged in filling a large hole with black powder, and it is supposed that in some unaccountable manner they caused a premature explosion. Murphy was blown up in the air and his body rolled down the side of the hill for a distance of nearly 200 feet and life was extinct when fellow workmen reached him. Watson had several ribs smashed in and received internal injuries and death resulted at two o’clock the following morning at the hospital in Boulder park. Both men were engaged in working in an open cut for subcontractors from the main contractors, Streeter & Lusk, Watson being foreman of the gang. Murphy, who is reported to have a sister and brother residing in Chicago, was about 40 years of age and single, while Watson, who has no known relatives, was about 65 years of age. The bodies of both men were taken to the Anderson undertaking establishment in Central City Saturday afternoon after Coroner Asquith had made a visit to ascertain the circumstances. He decided that no inquest was necessary, and their funerals occurred Monday afternoon, interment in the city cemetery.” (Friday, July 22, 1904).

Despite its modest size, Needle’s Eye Tunnel is emblematic of Rollins Pass—rugged, beautiful, dangerous, and complex. Its interior walls remain soot-stained, silent witnesses to the locomotives that once passed through. Today, every other tunnel on Rollins Pass has collapsed. Needle’s Eye Tunnel endures—and so does the human drive that once forced steel through alpine stone.

DEVIL’S SLIDE TRESTLE AND PHANTOM BRIDGE (KNOWN COLLECTIVELY AS THE TWIN TRESTLES) | ROLLINS PASS EAST | BOULDER COUNTY, COLORADO

Devil’s Slide Trestle & Phantom Bridge: Twin Spans on the Edge

Clinging to a mountainside more than 1,000 feet above the South Fork of Middle Boulder Creek, the twin trestles of Rollins Pass stand as monuments to early 20th-century engineering courage and craftsmanship. Located between 11,475 and 11,500 feet above sea level, these twin structures—though fraternal rather than identical—formed a critical part of the Moffat Road’s climb to the Continental Divide.

The lower and more well-known of the two, often referred to as the Devil’s Slide Trestle, is a 128-foot-long, eight-panel marvel, gracefully arcing along a banking curve. The structure’s elegance belies the sheer vertical drop beneath it—so extreme that three Statues of Liberty stacked atop one another still wouldn’t reach the level of the decking. Archival construction photos of the trestle’s assembly show 17 workers poised over the canyon, building into thin air with steely nerves and white-knuckled focus. (This astonishing photograph was published on page 49 of our second book.)

Just 0.11 miles uphill, the Phantom Bridge spans another dramatic chasm. It’s a 240-foot-long, 15-panel structure with a subtly curved western end. Unlike its more sinuous sibling, Phantom Bridge runs nearly straight across the void—its name evoking the way it often disappears into mist and clouds at such an elevation.

Both trestles were constructed using the classic timber bent design of the era. Each consists of footers (piers) carved directly into the mountainside’s rock, mudsills buried below snowpack, upright posts, diagonal sway braces, horizontal caps, and long stringers that lie just beneath the (now removed) ties and track. Though built to carry rail traffic over a century ago, their enduring strength was repurposed for modern infrastructure: Xcel Energy’s natural gas pipeline runs alongside the trestles, its corrosion-resistant tape-wrapped segments supported by the same structures once tasked with hauling freight and passengers over the Divide.

The fact that these trestles have endured more than a century of alpine freeze-thaw cycles, windstorms, and heavy snowloads—while now supporting a critical modern utility—a high-pressure natural gas pipeline operated by Xcel Energy—is a testament to both their original design and their continued relevance. Far from ruins, they remain living examples of how infrastructure, when built with intention and grit, can outlast even the era that called them into being.

ROLLINS PASS SUMMIT (CORONA STATION) | SUMMIT | BOULDER COUNTY, COLORADO

Corona Station: The Crown of Rollins Pass

At 11,676.79 feet above sea level, the summit of Rollins Pass—known during the railroad era as Corona—was both the literal and symbolic high point of the Denver, Northwestern & Pacific Railway. Latin for “crown,” Corona was perched at the top of one of the most ambitious rail crossings ever attempted in the Rockies. The name reflected both its elevation and its allure: travelers and railroaders alike regarded it as “the top of the world.”

The first train crested the summit on September 2, 1904. As it approached, Conductor George H. Barnes called out, “Rollins Pass—the Top of the World!” Just one day later, early September delivered six inches of wet snow—a reminder that nature’s authority still ruled above the timberline.

The summit evolved into more than just a rail junction. It became a seasonal destination. Corona Station included a large dining hall with glass-paned transoms and a green-shingled roof, offering sweeping views from the patio. A water tower, attached to the building, provided running water—essential in a place with no “uphill.” Nearby, donkey rides gave tourists a chance to explore the high country. For a small fee, guides would retrieve hats lost to the frequent gusting winds.

Over time, the summit sign became an iconic feature. While early versions celebrated the railroad and toll roads, it wasn’t until 2018 that signage began to acknowledge the much earlier use of the pass by Native American peoples, informed by archaeological fieldwork conducted by Dr. Jason LaBelle and Colorado State University students, among others. Fading wagon tracks, extensive prehistoric use, and lithic scatter throughout the alpine tundra testify to millennia of passage over this relatively low saddle in the Continental Divide.

One of the pass’s most unusual stories unfolded on March 3, 1917, when a boy was born aboard a train inside the baggage car at Corona. His parents named him David Moffat Haynes in honor of the railroad tycoon. The only other woman aboard assisted with the delivery while the train’s crew telegraphed Denver to have an ambulance waiting.

Today, motorized and nonmotorized visitors reach the summit by vehicle, bicycle, or foot, often unaware of how dramatically the altitude affects the body. At this elevation, air pressure is 40% lower than at sea level. Even in summer, sudden snowstorms, blizzards, and lightning strikes can surprise visitors. The climate is volatile: snow may linger waist-deep in July, followed by only a brief window of green, before autumn’s golden tones take hold just weeks later in August.

Despite the hardships—snow removal, brake failures, altitude sickness—railroad workers and tourists alike were captivated by the scenery.

Mountain passes are not customarily named for their apex stations—we say Fremont Pass, not Climax; La Veta Pass, not Fir; and likewise, Rollins Pass, not Corona. The U.S. Geological Survey and the U.S. Board on Geographic Names officially recognize Rollins Pass as the correct name. It is the sole entry listed in the Geographic Names Information System and in the Correct Orthography of Geographic Names. Area author Frederick Bauer stated it plainly: “[Rollins Pass is] incorrectly called Corona Pass by neophytes and some locals.”

In 1952, a geodetic team placed a benchmark to officially record the summit elevation. The marker was installed “at the old town site of Corona… set in the top of the northwest corner of an abandoned 4×6 foot concrete foundation.” Its official elevation was later adjusted to 11,676.79 feet (NAVD88). The benchmark was stolen in later years, but its record stands—quiet testimony to the measured precision once brought to this place of rugged extremes.

MOUNT EPWORTH | ROLLINS PASS WEST | GRAND COUNTY, COLORADO

Mount Epworth: Where History and Hazard Intersect

Near the summit of Rollins Pass, the imposing, triangular form of Mount Epworth (12,383 feet) dominates the skyline. Once known in some circles as Pumphouse Peak, the mountain rises above a dramatic alpine basin that has long served as a backdrop for both industry and adventure.

The now-silent railroad grade skirts across the terrain in full view of Mount Epworth, where faint historic wagon road tracks and the footprint of a pump house system still mark the landscape. This infrastructure once supplied water for steam locomotives grinding their way over the pass, drawing from what’s now called Pumphouse Lake, nestled at the mountain’s base.

In more recent decades, Mount Epworth’s snowy slopes have become home to tradition and thrill. Since the 1970s, skiers have returned each summer for the Epworth Cup, an informal competition held on lingering snowfields—traditionally on the Sunday after Independence Day. Yet the terrain on and surrounding Mount Epworth demands respect: it’s steep, remote, and avalanche-prone. On February 14, 2021, a fatal hard slab avalanche was unintentionally triggered by a snowmobiler and he was carried into Pumphouse Lake.

Across the valley, Byers Peak rises in the distance, its familiar profile watching over the Fraser Valley below. Closer to Mount Epworth, along the Moffat Road that stretches toward the summit, the splintered remnants of snowsheds and the high line of the railroad serve as lasting reminders that this mountain—once part of Colorado’s most ambitious rail crossing—continues to hold both history and hazard in its steep, wind-carved folds.

RIFLESIGHT NOTCH TRESTLE | ROLLINS PASS WEST | GRAND COUNTY, COLORADO

Riflesight Notch Trestle: Precision by Design, Peril by Default

Few places along the Moffat Road better illustrate the audacity of railroad engineering than Riflesight Notch Trestle. Here, the line doesn’t just cross a deep ravine—it performs an elegant arc around a hillside, losing 150 feet of elevation before diving directly beneath itself into Tunnel No. 33. It’s a maneuver that Horace Sumner, chief engineer of the Denver, Northwestern & Pacific Railway, designed with characteristic ingenuity: stack vertical solutions to horizontal problems.

The trestle gets its name from the natural shape of the surrounding landscape. Where the two hillsides converge, the view down the ravine resembles looking through a rifle’s sightline. Hence, Riflesight Notch. That convergence provided the opportunity for Sumner’s signature solution: perch a wooden trestle directly above a tunnel that runs perpendicular below.

It worked—but it wasn’t easy. Tunnel No. 33, blasted through the unstable Ranch Creek Fault, was perpetually at risk of collapse even during operation. After the Moffat Tunnel opened in 1928, maintenance ceased, and Tunnel No. 33 fully collapsed within a few decades. Remarkably, the trestle above survived unscathed, despite losing the structure below that once supported both the railway and the engineering vision behind it.

The terrain here also tested people. In 1912, Engineer George Clark and Fireman Carson Friend jumped from their engine near the Loop—Clark would later resign. But the brakeman and conductor stayed aboard, regaining control just in time to stop the train at Riflesight Notch.

As dramatic as the place itself, travelers often carried stories home. In 1907, Edward Eberhadt, a Denver druggist, rode horseback across the Divide following the rails from Tolland to Hot Sulphur Springs—tunnels, snow sheds, trestles and all. When he reached the Riflesight Loop, workers carved a snow shortcut through the embankment, allowing him to bypass the trestle altogether and rejoin the old stage road westward.

Today, Riflesight Notch Trestle remains one of the most iconic remnants of Rollins Pass, an architectural answer to a geographic challenge—quiet now, but still curving with purpose above the buried ruin of Tunnel No. 33.

ARROW (ARROWHEAD) | ROLLINS PASS WEST | GRAND COUNTY, COLORADO

Arrow: A Railroad Town That Flashed and Fell

Perched along the original path of the Denver, Northwestern & Pacific Railway, Arrow—first known as Arrowhead—was Grand County’s first incorporated town, formalized on December 29, 1904. The railroad had reached the site just months earlier, on September 18, 1904, bringing with it a burst of development that transformed the clearing into a critical stop on the Moffat Road. Arrow’s significance was underscored by the presence of a railroad wye—a triangular track formation used to reverse trains—whose arrowhead shape inspired the town’s name.

By 1906, Arrow supported more than 2,500 residents and a bustling economy anchored in timber, freight, and the promise of westward expansion. The town boasted eleven saloons, multiple cafés and restaurants, a post office (opened March 21, 1905, with William L. York as the first postmaster), a schoolhouse, hotels, a livery, a pharmacy, four sawmills, and a stockyard—all built to support the massive effort of hauling men, timber, and materials over Rollins Pass. Arrow wasn’t a rough camp; it was an ambitious, modern town where gas lamps lit the main street, a rarity for remote communities of the time.

Life in Arrow, however, wasn’t always orderly. In September 1906, a shooting outside the Wolf Saloon ended the life of Indian Tom, a well-known wagon foreman on the Moffat Road. According to eyewitness A.W. Lininger, then just 16 years old and working as a teamster in Arrow, the killing was unprovoked—Tom was shot through a slightly opened saloon door by a man named Ragland, who later turned himself in. A coroner’s jury ruled it murder, but Ragland’s trial was moved out of the county due to publicity, and he was released on bond. The event starkly illustrated the volatility of even the most promising towns.

In time, Arrow’s fortunes dimmed. A devastating fire—allegedly set by Mart Wolf, the Elk Saloon’s owner, in an attempted insurance scheme—swept through town, accelerating its decline. The post office closed on March 15, 1915, and when the Moffat Tunnel opened in 1928, bypassing the steep, avalanche-prone route over Rollins Pass, Arrow’s reason for being vanished. The tracks remained until 1936, but the town itself had already faded.

Today, little remains of Arrow beyond weathered timbers and a few forgotten graves nestled in a pine grove. Still, its story endures—a testament to the ambitions, labor, and sharp edges that defined Colorado’s high-country railroad towns. The full story is further illuminated by the access we have to Arrow’s original handwritten incorporation documents—including the vote tally, hand drawn map, and organizing petitions—offering a rare, firsthand glimpse into the administrative birth of a frontier town now lost to time.

THE MOFFAT TUNNEL | EAST PORTAL (GILPIN COUNTY) & WEST PORTAL (GRAND COUNTY, COLORADO)

The Moffat Tunnel: Colorado’s Cathedral to Engineering

For decades, the Hill Route over Rollins Pass was known for its steep grades, relentless snow, and mechanical challenges. But from the beginning, it was intended as a temporary solution. David H. Moffat’s true vision was far more ambitious: a direct route through the Continental Divide. That vision became reality with the completion of the Moffat Tunnel in February 1928, a project so massive it required the removal of 1.5 million tons of rock and the sacrifice of at least 28 lives—though emerging evidence suggests the true number may be higher. The tunnel, 6.2 miles long and bored under James Peak, was hailed as a National Historic Civil Engineering Landmark—and more than that, as the moment that rendered Rollins Pass obsolete for rail.

Construction began in 1923, with workers attacking the mountain from both east and west. The project cost $24 million and introduced innovations such as call-shift labor, where workers were paid to complete specific tasks regardless of the time it took. The tunnel required 1,250 tons of dynamite, 700 miles of drill holes, and 400 tons of drill steel. In the process, crews battled through glacial seepage from alpine lakes, including a dramatic incident beneath Crater Lake, where water poured in at 1,800 gallons per minute. A clever test involving chloride of lime confirmed the source, and a single stick of dynamite, dropped into the lake, reduced the flow to a trickle.

Above ground, the company towns of East Portal and West Portal housed workers and families. Each included a hospital with an operating room, a movie theater, school, post office, and mess hall—all operating under the constraints of Prohibition. No saloon existed at East Portal, making it one of the few early Gilpin County towns entirely dry. A 48-star American flag flew over the paymaster’s home at East Portal on July 4, 1924—a photo that today helps date the enduring remnants of that temporary town. Five cabins still stand and were listed in 2020 as one of Colorado’s Most Endangered Places by Colorado Preservation Inc. The West Portal, meanwhile, held 200 more workers, but none of its historic structures survive.

The tunnel itself is deceptively simple in appearance, but highly sophisticated in design. At 24 feet high and 17 feet wide, it features a ventilation system capable of exchanging all interior air in 18 minutes and a series of “umbrellas” to disperse seepage along the tracks. A massive blower system housed at the larger East Portal moved up to 420,000 cubic feet of air per minute. Below the surface, trains pass through 21 refuge locations, repurposed from original crosscuts. Trains ascend a gentle grade from the East Portal’s 9,196 feet to the apex at 9,238 feet, then descend to the West Portal at 9,098 feet.

The tunnel’s opening also marked the end of an era. A March 1928 article in the Steamboat Pilot titled “Top of the World Has Been Abandoned” documented the final days of rail over Rollins Pass. The last two men stationed at Corona, a telegraph operator and a lineman, routed messages “over the top” for the final time before communication systems in the tunnel came online. In 1935, the Denver & Salt Lake Railway formally applied to abandon the 31.76-mile stretch of rail between Newcomb and Vasquez. In approving the request, the Interstate Commerce Commission concluded that the route “had served the purpose for which it was constructed,” that continued operation “would impose an unnecessary and undue burden on interstate commerce,” and that abandonment “will not result in public inconvenience.” The following year, in 1936, the rails and ties were removed from Rollins Pass.

The tunnel also held strategic importance beyond transportation. During World War II, over 30 defense trains per day hurried through the tunnel to support the war effort. Its reliability, speed, and weather-agnostic interior—requiring just 12 minutes to traverse—proved invaluable. A pioneer bore, dug 75 feet to the south to aid with construction, was later converted into a municipal water tunnel, adding to the project’s long-term utility.

The tunnel even entered the cinematic world. Before it opened, Courtney Ryley Cooper’s book The White Desert was made into a silent film, shot on Rollins Pass and released in 1925 to generate public support for tunnel funding. Later, in 1928, scenes for Trail of ’98 were filmed inside the newly completed tunnel. Though the portal signage contains a typographical error, the milestone was clear: Colorado had created a tunnel through a mountain, under alpine lakes, and across the backbone of the continent.

Today, Amtrak’s Winter Park Express carries skiers through the tunnel in winter, continuing a tradition begun by the original ski trains in 1940. On the Pacific Slope, tracks outside the historic Balcony House remain active, even as the cabins at East Portal face increasing risk from vandalism and time on the Atlantic Slope of the Continental Divide.

The Moffat Tunnel is more than an engineering marvel—it is a deliberate absence of stone, a cathedral carved in darkness, shaped by men who met in the middle of a mountain. Its construction marked the end of one era and the hopeful beginning of another.

READY TO EXPLORE MORE LEGENDARY LANDMARKS?

Ready to explore more? Use the map below to navigate to each landmark. However you choose to explore, you’re walking through a story that still matters.

Featuring over 750 custom-located features, this map continues to grow—each point thoughtfully selected to illuminate the layered story of one of Colorado’s Great Gates. Explore our detailed, annotated map of the Rollins Pass and Moffat Tunnel corridor. Compiled by B. Travis Wright of Preserve Rollins Pass, the map highlights notable landmarks, former towns, historical alignments, trestle locations, and permanent closures. It offers a research-backed view of a landscape shaped by elevation, ingenuity, and endurance. With an expansive collection of mapped elements—including original rail segments, historic travel corridors, interpretive sites, and modern routes that trace where trains once climbed—this resource reveals the full complexity of Rollins Pass like never before. Culturally sensitive and protected archaeological sites are intentionally excluded to preserve their integrity and ensure long-term stewardship.

While every effort has been made to place locations as accurately as possible, some variation may occur due to the projection of three-dimensional terrain onto a two-dimensional map. In some cases—such as crosscuts within the Moffat Tunnel—mapped elements may lie thousands of feet below the surface. The map also does not depict time or season; overlapping points may represent multiple eras of use in the same physical space, and what is accessible or visible in summer may be obscured, impassable, or hazardous in winter. Many placements are derived from historic sources, field research, and direct interpretation by our team and collaborating experts. Environmental changes may have since altered or obscured features. This map is provided as a courtesy to visitors of the Rollins Pass area and is intended for informational purposes only. All information is presented “as is,” without warranties—express or implied—including those of safety, navigability, or fitness for a particular purpose.

Have a historically relevant, publicly appropriate feature to suggest? Contact us.

Want to open directly in Google Maps? Click here.

© B. Travis Wright, MPS. All rights reserved. All content—including text, photographs, maps, descriptive captions, and custom-located annotations—is the intellectual property of B. Travis Wright, MPS, and protected under U.S. copyright law. This includes all interpretive material and research-based features shown on public maps. While the underlying base map is provided by Google, all custom content layered on top is original work. Downloading KML/KMZ data does not grant permission to modify, redistribute, rehost, or use in derivative works—digitally or in print. No content—commercial or non-commercial—may be reused without express written consent. Use of this material in guided tours, commercial publications, presentations, or paid experiences is strictly prohibited without prior written authorization. Academic citations must include full attribution. This content is updated periodically. Cite version or access date when referencing materials for research or publication. Unauthorized use undermines the preservation of cultural and historical resources—please respect the integrity of this work. This content may not be used in datasets for training artificial intelligence, large language models, or other automated content-generation systems. Any appearance of this material on third-party platforms without attribution or permission does not imply endorsement and may constitute copyright infringement. For permissions or inquiries, contact: authors@preserverollinspass.org. Respect for this work protects not just copyright—it protects the stories, landscapes, and histories that Rollins Pass and the Moffat Tunnel continue to hold.

THE STORY DOESN’T END HERE

These legendary landmarks aren’t just scenic destinations—they’re reference points in a deeper story of movement, memory, and meaning across Rollins Pass. From soot-stained tunnels and vanished towns to alpine lakes and timber trestles, each site holds a chapter we’ve worked hard to document, preserve, and piece together. If you still have questions, chances are we already have the answer—or know exactly where to find it. And if you’ve stood among these landmarks and noticed something unfamiliar, reach out. The past may be behind us, but on Rollins Pass, it still speaks—and we’re listening.

The primary purpose of our work is to inform the public.

• Facebook
• Mail
• Twitter
• Amazon
• Goodreads
• YouTube
• LinkedIn