Dolores lies where the river of the same name leaves the mountains and starts its long run across the red-rock plateau toward Utah. The town is small, just about nine hundred people, strung along Highway 145 beside the water, with the San Juans visible to the north and the green rampart of the Mesa Verde country to the south. The Spanish explorers who came through in 1776, the Domínguez and Escalante party, gave the river its name, El Río de Nuestra Señora de los Dolores, the River of Our Lady of Sorrows.
The land here is thick with the history of the Ancestral Puebloan people, who farmed these mesas for centuries and left remarkable stone villages and cliff dwellings. The Anasazi Heritage Center, a short drive from town, holds collections of pottery, baskets and tools from dig sites across the region and gives a wonderful background before you see the sites in the open. Canyons of the Ancients National Monument spreads west of here, with thousands of recorded sites, most of them unexcavated and unmarked on the ground.
The riding is relaxed. The highway follows the Dolores River from the foot of Lizard Head Pass, with pine forest on either side and the water flowing clear and green beside the road. South of town it opens into more rolling ranch country toward Cortez, with a long, wide view of the Sleeping Ute Mountain, a ridge shaped like a reclining figure. McPhee Reservoir lies just off the road, a big blue lake in the red desert, popular with anglers and boaters.
Dolores has fuel, a few cafes, a brewery and a handful of motels, and Cortez, about sixteen kilometres away, has everything else. A museum of the Rio Grande Southern railroad sits near the centre of town, a small building with lovely railway relics.
Summer is warm and dry, with temperatures in the nineties on the plateau, while the mountains behind remain cooler. Spring and autumn are the best seasons for riding here, with clear air and soft light. Afternoon thunderstorms can bring flash floods in the washes, so be careful on dirt roads. Mesa Verde lies close, with its famous cliff dwellings, and is a sensible detour.