This doesn't look as hard as it felt

Just south of Montrose CO there is a road headed into the sky as far as I could tell.  I rode it westerly for 8 miles and all it did was go up.  Started at 6163 feet (by the car GPS) and went to 7838' (by the altimeter on my bike calibrated to the car GPS),  or 1675' of climbing.  The grade was between 4% and 8%.  I still hadn't found the height of land.