crystal mill

The Crystal Mill is beautiful and the road itself is very scenic. However, you need a good vehicle - the road is very narrow and steep. Probably an ATV is a good idea. There are tours available. I would recommend the Crystal Mill if you are interested in a scenic drive, easy but long hike, ATV tour, picnic with a beautiful view and great photo opportunities.

This is a classic Colorado structure. There are plenty of good camera angles to shoot and they have done a good job preserving it. We accessed it from Marble CO, eliminating challenging Schofield Pass, but is is plenty rocky. Expect body damage with a low clearance vehicle. It is a slow trip, even from Marble, but worth every mile!

The mill, which is really an old miner's air compressor pump house is an iconic location surrounded by beautiful mountains. We rented an ATV for the very challenging and rocky drive, which included a couple of steep and narrow shelf roads. The autumn colors on the Aspen trees was beautiful and well worth the trek.

Everything I expected, and More, weather even cooperated!!! My Photos are sellable, and memories to last a lifetime!

If you take a jeep tour from Marble, Co you can stop in the ghost town of Crystal and the Mill. It is historic, beautiful, and well worth the trip.

Actually made the trip 1.5 times. The first night we got a late start and turned back a little past Lizard lake. The road is very rocky. I would not attempt this with passenger rated tires but I saw a few stock SUVs doing this. I just hope I would not have to meet someone coming the other way on the shelf-road sections. There are shelf sections from what I remember. You just have to note where your pull outs are and how far back. Remember the uphill vehicle has the Right Of Way. This will change many times as you make the 6 miles out to the mill. Once there the trip back was a cinch. The photography was great and we went past it to the townsite of Crystal. There we med a kid carrying a rifle and chatted a little. Turned out his family owned several hundred acersand several of the cabins in Crystal and he also gestured to the Mountain over there. "We own that Mountain" he proclaimed, "been in the family 5 generations" All in all a great destination. Highly recommended. If your vehicle does not have sufficient clearance or good tires there are quad rentals and jeep tours available in Marble.

The Crystal Mill is the most photographed historic site in Colorado, and for good reason. It was worth the trek, but I would only make the trip with an experienced 4x4 jeep driver or by ATV.

We also approached this from marble as other posters have said and while only 6 miles, it was a very slow and terrifying drive in our Chevy Blazer. At one point we had to get out of our cars to assess how to pass a car coming in the opposite direction on a narrow section with a drop of over 100 feet on one side. It took us 20 minutes just to figure that out. If you are not a regular wheeler, then I recommend going with someone who has more experience driving that road.I believe this was listed near Gunnison, because there is supposedly an even more treacherous 4WD road (likely only for Jeeps or ATV's) that connects over another pass to the southeast to Crested Butte somehow.Glad I got to see it and get some pics because I won't be going back down that road again.

This is an inaccurate listing as Gunnison is 130 miles from Crystal Mill and much closer to Marble, CO or Crystal City (a ghost town)... it is much closer to Carbondale, CO.The Crystal Mill site is located in an historic, picturesque, remote, wooded area well worth the difficulty in getting there. It was a hydro-electric power plant that was used for mining from the 1890s until 1917 and is located between Marble Colorado and Crystal City (a ghost town). It's perched next to the river and is a very scenic, iconic look into history.This trip can best be done by an ATV, Jeep, or other four-wheel-drive with high clearance. It may also be reached by mountain bike, on foot, or guided jeep tour. While only 6 miles from marble, the road is a difficult, remote, steep, one lane, rocky road with several sheer drop offs down to the river. There is very little traffic, but the vehicle going downhill has the right away, so you may have to back-up to let someone pass.We drove in a Silverado 4 x 4 with high clearance and we averaged 5 mph, so it took over 3 hrs to get to and from the Mill site from Marble. Allow plenty of time and fill your gas tanks in Carbondale or before you get to Marble. It is very remote and rugged with no cell coverage. Do not attempt this in wet, rainy weather or winter. If you break down, your only option may be to walk out.From HWY 133 go through marble on the paved road until it ends and continue past Beaver Lake on the dirt road for two miles to the junction and then stay to the right. At Lizard Lake,continue straight for 4 miles until you come to the mill. After taking photographs of the mill, the ghost town of Crystal city is also about 1/2 mile farther on the road if you care to visit it.

Also überall angekündigt aber Lider total ausgebucht kein Jeep, keine Quad. Wir mussten leider umkehren. Unser 4WD Nissan ist dazu nicht geeignet. Preise sind bei ca 160 Dollar.