The Cochetopa Hills are a fifty-mile upland range on the Continental Divide in southern Colorado, part of the San Juan Mountains between Marshall Pass and Saguache Park. Their significance lies in this section of the divide being unusually low, with Cochetopa Pass and North Pass long providing practical crossings used by Native Americans. The Ute name Cochetopa means “gate of buffaloes.” The landscape was shaped by major volcanic activity between about 35 and 26 million years ago, including the North Pass and Cochetopa calderas, and later by glaciation around Long Branch Baldy, the range’s highest point. Colorado Highway 114 still follows this historic corridor at North Pass.