- Distance: 94.1 Miles (151.44 km)
- Rating: 2-B, Mostly pleasantly sweeping corners with the occasional technical section. Ratings Explained »
- Travel: Either direction for best results
- Start: Whitewater, Colorado
- End: Naturita, Colorado
- Fuel: Best to fill up before heading out.
- Along the Way: A mere two miles of gravel and some dirt-road switchbacks on Divide Road will give some glorious views of the canyon road below.
- Highlights: The red rock is nothing you'd expect to see in Colorado, but thats because you are only a few miles from the eastern border of Utah and Moab, Utah is only a few miles beyond that.
- Advisories: This is a pretty unused route, so expect things to be quiet.
Summary
One of those roads that gets overlooked, Unaweep Canyon is a great side-route with plenty of cornering opportunities to keep most any rider happily moving along. Consisting almost exclusively of gently sweeping corners and outstanding views of steep canyon walls and towering mesa's make this road perfect for the scenically interested rider.
Things start off right away as soon as you pull out of Whitewater, Colorado and you'll find yourself dancing though constant radius corners as you head west towards Utah. Pinion Mesa to the north is an impressive sight and towers majestically overlooking your progress. The closer you get to the town of Gateway, Colorado the more you'll think you took a wrong turn because the terrain is distinctly Moab.After leaving Gateway, the road gets even better as you follow the Dolores River and the towering rock walls close in from both sides. The road really starts to sweep, throwing endlessly long corners at you as soon as you cross Blue Creek and put Blue Creek Canyon into your mirrors. This section is the heart of the road. Unaweep Canyon eventually makes a distinct turn back towards the east to meet up with a smattering of buildings called Uravan, Colorado. From this point, the road mellows dramatically and becomes an empty highway leading south-east towards Naturita.
Do you have a better photograph of this Road?
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Email photos to contest at canyonchasers.net with the name of the road in the subject line. (Or just click on that link and we'll fill in the subject line for you.)
Rate This Road
Have you ridden this road? How would you rate it? With one star meaning you thought this was a super-lame road with very little value, to five stars meaning that you felt like this was the mother of all roads - a road by which other roads should be judged.
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Ratings Explained
The CanyonChasers road rating is two parts. The first part, numbers 1 through 5, describe how technical the road is, with number 1 being a gently sweeping road and number five being very technical with challenging corners. The second part of the rating is a letter, A, B, C, D and F. The letter describes the quality of the road surface with A being perfect, pristine smooth and F being degraded, bumpy and crumbly. Rolling joints, tar-stips or "gummy worms" will drop the road one letter grade.
This road information is for planning and recreational purposes only. You may find that construction projects, traffic, or other events may cause road conditions to differ from the CanyonChasers ratings. Ratings may not be applicable to all riders, all bikes and all skill levels.