To the west is the Horseshoe Basin, a deep glacial cirque at the head of the Peru Creek, a tributary that joins the Snake River just north of Montezuma.

The continental divide at Argentine Pass serves as the boundary between Clear Creek and Summit counties.

They named the deposit the Belmont Lode (from the French for "beautiful mountain"), and the surrounding area came to be known as the Argentine mining district (from argentum, Latin for silver).

The discovery led to the growth of Georgetown as an early center of the silver mining industry in Colorado, although development was slowed by a general ignorance of how to properly treat the ore, by the high cost of transportation from the mines, and by the climate at that altitude.

In 1883, the road was purchased by Clear Creek County and Summit County as a public highway; in the same year, the Denver, South Park and Pacific Railroad reached Dillon, diverting most of the freight traffic from the toll road.

The cable, which carried six toll lines, required intensive maintenance and was entirely replaced three times before its use was abandoned in 1909.

Finally, in the summer of 1916, Mountain States Telephone & Telegraph Company installed a heavily engineered overhead line, hauling supplies by rail to Waldorf and then onward by pack train.

Reese Vidler purchased the mine in 1902 with a plan to extend it under the Continental Divide as a railroad tunnel.

[9][16][17] The peak wind speed recorded at the pass as of 1912 was 165 miles per hour (266 km/h), at which point the measuring equipment was blown away.