08/22/2026
Why have people been spending summers in the San Juan Mountains for thousands of years?
Every summer, visitors head into the San Juan Mountains to hike alpine trails, photograph wildflowers, fish mountain lakes, and escape the heat. Before highways, trailheads, and scenic overlooks existed, Ute people made this same seasonal journey.
When the snow melted and passes opened, the Tabeguache, the largest band of the ten nomadic bands of the Ute, traveled into the alpine meadows and forested uplands of this region. The mountains provided berries, edible plants, medicinal herbs, trout-filled streams, fresh water, and productive hunting grounds. By moving with the seasons, the Ute people used the land in ways that allowed wildlife and plant communities to recover naturally. Many routes used during these seasonal journeys later became roads, rail routes, and highways.
Many of the names of our peaks, rivers, and towns also come from the Ute language. In fact, the Uncompahgre River is named for the Ute word that loosely translates to “dirty water” or “red water,” referencing the orange color of the Uncompahgre River due to the natural seepage of minerals from the red rocks in the mountains. Today, descendants of the Tabeguache live on the Uinta and Ouray Indian Reservation in Utah and continue to advocate for water conservation, wildlife habitat, and biodiversity throughout the Colorado River Basin.
Have you ever stopped to imagine what it was like to live in these mountains long before roads and automobiles?
Info from: The San Juan Skyway: Into the Heart of the Colorado Rockies
Explore more: https://www.visitouray.com/sanjuanskyway
Photos: Chipeta, wife of Chief Ouray, poses in 1907, Denver Public Library Special Collections, Z-1457; Utes on horseback in the 1890s, by Horace Swartley Poley; A man on horseback near Uncompahgre Peak, Denver Public Library Special Collections, GB-7204.
