When the pass opens
6 on the map · 4 more worldwide ·
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For a large part of the year some of the best roads in cycling do not exist. Snow shuts them in autumn, and in spring a plough crew works uphill for weeks through walls of snow taller than the machines, until one day the barrier goes up.
Nobody can tell you in advance when that will be. It depends on how much fell, how deep it packed into the cuttings, and whether the avalanche paths above the road have run yet. Every road here has opened in April at some point in its history, and every one of them has stayed shut into July.
So do not plan around a date you read anywhere, including here. Learn the shape of the year instead: that the Beartooth is usually the last way into Yellowstone rather than the first, and that a Stelvio trip in early May is a gamble where early September is not.
The roads, highest first
Mount Blue Sky (from Echo Lake) reopened May 2026, reservation requiredThe highest paved road in North America, topping out at 14,130 feet, and the American reference test for racing at altitude: the hill climb first run in 1962…
Trail Ridge Road (east side) usually open by late MayThe highest continuous paved road in the United States at 12,183 feet, built by the Park Service in the 1930s and listed as an All-American Road.
Cottonwood Pass (from Buena Vista) shut through the winterThe highest fully paved mountain pass in the United States since the west side was surfaced in 2019: 12,126 feet on the Continental Divide, edging out neighb…
Independence Pass (from Aspen) shut November to late MayThe queen-stage pass of American racing: the Coors Classic sent Bernard Hinault's last stage race over it in 1986, and the USA Pro Challenge revived the cros…
Beartooth Pass (from Red Lodge) shut over half the yearThe highest highway point in Montana and Wyoming at 3,337 m, on the Depression-built road Charles Kuralt called the most beautiful drive in America.
Passo dello Stelvio usually open by late MayThe Giro's roof: the defining venue of the Cima Coppi, first raced in 1953 when Coppi went over clear and dropped into Bormio to seal his fifth Giro.
Not yet on the map
Verified members outside our covered regions — each joins the map when its region does.
- Going-to-the-Sun Road The most famous plough in American cycling: for a few weeks each spring the road is cleared but not yet open to cars, and riders have it to themselves as far as the crews have got. The window is announced week by week and it is the single best-known reason to watch a road opening date.
- Grossglockner High Alpine Road A toll road that publishes its opening every spring, usually in early May, and shuts again with the first serious snow. It also closes overnight, which catches riders out.
- Trollstigen Closed by snow every winter, and closed for two further years by rockfall before reopening in July 2025. Norway's most-photographed hairpins have a season measured in months, not seasons.
- Col de l'Iseran The highest paved pass in France at 2,764 metres, and reliably one of the last in the Alps to open, usually not until well into June.