Ophir Pass (Oh! Fear!)

Anyone who's been on the Million Dollar Highway and thinks it is scary should take a trip across Ophir Pass. This road is for four-wheel drive vehicles with high clearance only! The road typically doesn't open until June because the snow hasn't melted yet. Some of the local folks were talking about having to get out of their vehicles to shovel the snow and rocks that were blocking the road.

It didn't start off scary. Just some trees.

But the further we went, the scarier it got. No guardrails. Not that they would have helped you if you slid off the road. And I know this is perfectly logical but it sounds really stupid: the closer we got to the top, the further we were from the bottom. The saving grace is that we were crawling along about 20 miles an hour. It was also helpful to look up and out instead of down. The views were stunning.

Did I mention that this road is not paved? Every now and again, a stream crossed the road. There are places where the road is seriously eroded.

Mark didn't think it was a big deal because every now and then we had to pull over to make room for someone coming the opposite direction. He thought it couldn't be too bad if people were coming from Silverton going toward Ophir. But it made more sense to me that they had been in front of us and reached the point where they could go no further and now they were turning back and we should, too.

I didn't voice any of my concerns to Mark at the time. I was sitting quietly, snapping pictures out the window and pleading with Jesus to let me off the mountain safely.

I can't believe we didn't stop at the top for a photo opportunity! But we were following our friends (although at 20 MPH, how far ahead of us could they get?) and there really wasn't much room up there to park. (Some other people already had the only two parking spots up there!) There's really no way I intend to repeat that trip, but the sights were fantastic!