Somewhere around mile marker 170 on Highway 24, the air changes. It gets thinner, cooler, and somehow cleaner, the kind of air that makes you roll the windows down even if it’s only 55 degrees. That’s when you know you’re almost in Leadville.
The Highest Town in the Country Is Open for Summer
At 10,152 feet, Leadville holds a title no other city in America can claim. And after a long winter of cold and quiet, Memorial Day Weekend is when the town exhales. Museums reopen. Patios get their chairs back. The Mineral Belt Trail shakes off the last of the snowpack. Harrison Avenue, all 19th-century storefronts and unexpected charm, continue buzzing with the particular energy of a place that earned its summer.
This isn’t Aspen. There’s no ski gondola, no outlet mall, no velvet rope. What Leadville has is more interesting: a genuine main street built during a silver boom, a mountain backdrop that includes two of Colorado’s highest 14ers, and Twin Lakes so blue they look like they were placed there on purpose.
Go Back About 150 Years
Memorial Weekend is also when many of Leadville’s museums and historic tours open their doors for the season, and this town has more history per square block than almost anywhere in the Rockies.
Start at the Tabor Opera House, where guided tours bring the silver boom era back to life. The building contains one of the finest collections of historic stage scenery in North America, and the stories the guides tell, of fortunes made and lost, of Horace and Baby Doe Tabor, are genuinely strange and compelling. A few blocks away, the Healy House and Dexter Cabin offer a different window into the same era: how Leadville’s elite actually lived, furnished and preserved in detail. The National Mining Hall of Fame and Museum rounds out the picture with exhibits on the mechanics and culture of the industry that built the town.
If you’d rather take your history outside, the Mineral Belt Trail loops 12 miles through the historic mining district, past ore carts and headframes still standing in the landscape. The Route of the Silver Kings is worth a drive. And across the lake at Twin Lakes, you can paddle or SUP to the historic Interlaken Resort, a ghost resort frozen in time on the far shore.
For a proper nightcap to any of it, the Silver Dollar Saloon and Pastime Saloon are both still standing and still pouring.
Get Out on the Water, the Trail, or the Rails
Lower-elevation trails start opening in late May, which usually means you can hike without snowshoes for the first time in months. Twin Lakes is cold, it’s always cold, but it’s the kind of cold that makes an afternoon on the water feel earned. Rent a kayak, canoe, or SUP from Twin Lakes SUP & Cycle or Twin Lakes Adventures, or let Twin Lakes Boat Tours do the work from the comfort of a pontoon.
For the Arkansas River, Aspen White Water Rafting runs trips on the rapids just outside town. For something with a longer view, the Top of the Rockies Zip Line, Colorado’s only true backcountry zip line, runs through forest with sightlines to the continent’s highest peaks.
If biking is your thing, the Mineral Belt Trail is the obvious start. Leadville Offroad Adventures and Leadville ATV Tours cover the dirt roads. Epic Happy Tours runs eBike tours along the trail and through the Silver Kings route for anyone who wants the scenery with some climbing assistance. Halfmoon Packing & Outfitting handles horseback rides, stagecoach rides, and backcountry trips. Colorado Fly Fishing Guides runs outings for every skill level on water that most people never find on their own.
And then there’s the Leadville Railroad, scenic train rides seven days a week, with a conductor who knows the history and special Devils Tail BBQ and wildflower rides worth booking ahead.
Highway 82 from Twin Lakes toward Aspen typically opens right around Memorial Weekend, and the drive to Independence Pass at 12,095 feet is worth the trip on its own.
The Practical Appeal
While Denver is hitting 85°F +, Leadville tops out around 65°F. That’s not a marketing trick, it’s meteorology. Bring a layer for evenings (always), sunscreen for afternoons (the altitude makes the sun serious), and an appetite for places that take their time. Harrison Avenue’s one-of-a-kind shops, antiques, local art, mountain gear, are open again, and the restaurants and patios are worth lingering over.
Your Summer Starts Here
Memorial Day Weekend is the perfect excuse to make the drive, but it’s just the beginning. All summer long, Leadville and Twin Lakes are running at full tilt: trails open, tours running, trains departing, museums telling their stories, and patios full of people who figured out that 65°F in July is actually perfect. Whether you come up for Memorial Weekend, a midsummer escape, or a last-chance Labor Day trip before the aspens turn, the mountains will be ready.
Come for a long weekend. Stay longer than you planned. Come back before summer’s over.
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