Devil's Punchbowl 2.5

Devil's Punchbowl is a beautiful pool at the base of a  waterfall.  Very nice spot.  The challenge is to get to it and away from it.

The Punchbowl is in the middle of an intimidating 3/4 mile of narrow shelf road with very few turnouts.  The road is plenty wide enough for ONE vehicle, but almost never wide enough for two.  Backing up is very dangerous.  There are gnarly sections that add to the intimidation factor, but we passed stock Wranglers making the trip.

​Many guide books and websites call this trip Schofield Pass.  It lies between Marble and Crested Butte.

There is a GPS - gpx track at the bottom of the page.
Picture
Devil's Punchbowl
Many non-Jeepers park near the top of the shelf road and hike down to the Punchbowl.  You may see dozens of people along this section, so take your time and be careful.  We put on quite a show for them as we had to pass in a very narrow spot.

The bottom part of the Jeep trail, below the Punchbowl, has a long section where you can see oncoming traffic on an exposed shelf road. This will let you wait for it to pass.
Picture
Narrow passing spot
Picture
Bottom part of the trail
There is a small parking area at the Punchbowl.  You can see the road uphill from here, but you CANNOT see to the top.  Of course, a driver at the top also cannot see down to here.  A dilemma.  The safest way is to have someone (maybe with a walkie-talkie) go to a view spot and signal if the trail is clear.  Otherwise, start driving and hope you are not the one that has to back up.

There is one spot just above the waterfall, on a corner, with room for one vehicle to move close to the ledge and allow oncoming traffic to pass.  This is the photo above.

The road is fairly straight above this corner, and it is possible to see oncoming traffic.
Picture
Upper part, above the Punchbowl corner
Updated 2014.
devils_punchbowl_2.5.gpx
File Size: 35 kb
File Type: gpx
Download File