Exploring With the Colorado Pass Book

The Colorado Pass Book: A Guide to Colorado's Backroad Mountain Passes by Don Koch
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Whether you're a native who grew up traveling the back roads of Colorado or a new tenderfoot looking to better acquaint yourself with your new home state, the Colorado Pass Book is an excellent all-in-one book for exploring, jeeping, and camping in the Centennial State! You don't need anything more than a stocked and well cared-for passenger car for some of the roads, and each of the routes are scenic trips in their own right.

I have had this book in two different editions and the most recent is best for the updated information as well as for the more compact travel size. Both editions are stuffed jammed tight with notes by me and my father, having driven each road in the book! Koch's estimates of the difficulty and equipment requirements for each route are spot on accurate. If there is one thing I could change about the book, it's that Koch seems to tone down his reviews and restrain his writing to understate certain aspects, and we have highlighted and underlined cautionary statements, because his warnings should be heeded at all costs!

Any guide book should be complimented by another and, while there isn't a direct road-for-road comparison that I know of, the best I've seen is Guide to Colorado Backroads & 4-Wheel Drive Trails in its various editions by Charles A. Wells. Both of these books are worth their weight in gold, especially if one takes into account the cost savings of car repairs!


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