Autumn scene with a natural beauty around the State Highway 145, near the town of Telluride, San Miguel County, in the southwestern part of Colorado, U.S., at the San Juan foothills, covered with conifers trees and aspens. Colorado encompasses most of the Southern Rocky Mountains, and is noted for its vivid landscapes of mountains, forests, high plains, mesas, canyons, rivers and desert lands. Until 1972 Telluride was a mining town, connected with a mining of silver and gold on the San Miguel River in the western San Juan Mountains. Now Telluride is mainly known with the 'Telluride Ski Resort' , slopes during the winter and with the festival in summer.