Gunnison-Crested Butte
7,680' MSL
There’s no low way in from the Front Range: both routes cross above 12,500'. Well-covered by cameras and AWOS either way.
Two ways in. Pick one before you leave the ground: both routes cross above 12,500' MSL, so plan your oxygen accordingly.
North up · Front Range (east) on the right, Gunnison (west) on the left
Showing the South · Primary route.
Kenosha Pass
10,001' MSLUS-285The most forgiving crossing on either route: a broad, largely flat summit with gentle grades on both approaches.
Weather source: No nearby AWOS.
Trout Creek Pass
9,346' MSLUS-24/US-285, concurrentThe lowest crossing on the south route, at the Park/Chaffee county line.
Weather source: Bald Mountain cam and AWOS, near Buena Vista at the base of the west side.
Monarch Pass
11,312' MSLUS-50On the Continental Divide between Chaffee and Gunnison counties. The crux of the south route: a weather station at the summit holds Colorado’s all-time recorded wind gust, 148 mph, and downdrafts here can outrun a normally aspirated single’s climb even in nothing worse than moderate wind.
Weather source: Monarch cam and AWOS.
This guide gives you the real-time sources: the cameras, the AWOS, and what each pass tends to do in certain wind directions. The Return Rule tells you what to do once you don’t like what you see. What it deliberately doesn’t do is hand you a wind limit, a ceiling minimum, or a turbulence threshold to fly by.
That’s not an oversight. Two pilots crossing the same pass in the same conditions are flying genuinely different flights: different aircraft performance, different currency, different comfort with terrain. A number that’s conservative for one pilot in one airplane can be reckless for another. Setting a universal limit here would mean substituting my judgment about your risk tolerance for your own, and that’s not a substitution either of us should want.
You are the pilot in command. Under 14 CFR 91.3, the decision to go, and the decision to turn around, is yours alone: built from your own experience, your airplane’s actual performance rather than book numbers on a good day, and an honest read on what you’re willing to fly into. This guide’s job is making sure you have the real picture before you decide. Deciding is still yours.
Showing the South · Primary route. Same pass positions as the map below, so you can line up exactly where each frequency change happens.
Hatched segment: known weak or gap reception below 16,000'.
From departure.
Starting about 10 miles before Kenosha Pass. Expect degraded reception below 16,000’ from beyond Kenosha through Monarch. That’s a known coverage gap, not a bad radio.
Once past Monarch Pass. Strong reception the rest of the way in, no further switch needed.
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I offer pre-trip briefings and mountain flying instruction based at KLMO.