New to area and would appreciate a trail suggestion.

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate
links, including eBay, Amazon, Skimlinks, and others.

Fitzgerald

Fitzgerald

Hey! Where'd the mountians go?!?!?
10 Year
Joined
Jan 27, 2011
Threads
124
Messages
3,023
Location
Back in COMO
Hello Everyone,


I just moved to the springs a few months ago and would love to start exploring the area. My plan was to get my FJ55 up and running ASAP, but I just couldn’t wait so I went and bought myself a 100 series. It's bone stock (minus running boards) and I don’t really want to start “building” it until I really know how extreme I want to wheel.


On to my question:


I would like to take the wife and kids out for a local trip this weekend. I’ve done a bunch of thread searches but can seem to find what I’m looking for. Since my ride’s stock, I’d like to find a nice, easy trail, but something that’s not so heavily trafficked. The kids (1 & 4) get antsy if there in their set too long, so I’d like to stop occasionally to chase bugs, play in streams, spot birds, etc.


I ordered the “Guide to Colorado Backroads” through amazon, but it won’t be here until next week.


Any suggestions are much appreciated.



Thanks!
-Travis
 
Frosty park/ mt. Herman would be a good one. It's up in the gold camp area. There tend to be a lot of knuckleheads up there, but not always. Shelf road/ phantom canyon would be good too. China wall and metberry gulch are the coolest two family trails around here, but iffy in spots for a stock 100. The 323/ 324 loop off of rampart is very nice, but no water to play in. I believe traildamage.com calls that trail "ice cave road".
 
PWCO70crusier said:
Luke pretty much summed it up for the Springs area. I think heading to Cripple Creek and running the Shelf-Phantom Canyon trails would be a good option. Basically dirt roads, but its something to do.
Click to expand...

x3 - good scenery, creek along one of them (not sure which) and cool things to do at both ends. Canon City end - Royal Gorge, rock shops, territorial prison museum. Cripple Creek/Victor end - cool old gold rush mining towns (the casinos have overtaken everything yet), good old fashioned ice cream shop in Cripple Creek, narrow gauge railroad, Molly Kathleen mine tours (last two may not be open for the season yet).

Note that bathrooms and restaurants accessible to kids can be hard to find in cripple creek as you have to go through the casinos to get to many of them and kids aren't allowed.
 
Thanks!

Thanks for the info guys. This is exactly what I was looking for and since my having an enjoyable time is inversely proportional to the amount of knuckleheads around, I think we'll head to the Shelf-Phantom Canyon trails. My wife wasn't sure about spending an hour + on the road BEFORE we started our adventure, but I think the old fashion ice cream suggestion changed her mind.

Thanks again!
-Travis
 
Travis,

Shelf road is exactly that in some places. Depending on what you and your family are used to in terms of driving next to ledges you may not feel comfortable on that road.
 
Hmm.... I grew up on trails in the Sierra's, so I'm used to it, not sure how the family will respond. I'll definitely take that into consideration, thanks for the heads up.
 
Make sure you get some good directions from the interweb. The entrance to shelf road was difficult for me to find the first time, and once you get to canon city, you pop out into a residential area that can turn you around.
There's a great Mexican restaurant a little ways west on 50, mission bell? Head back east and follow gold belt tour signs to phantom.
 
one of my favorites is balanced rock road on trail damage .com. It's not to far from Mt. herman Rd and has a little lake at the bottom. I just went up there last weekend and the end gate is gone so just make sure you stop before that point if you go. Me and the son had a great time hiking around the lake and seeing all the wildlife like deer, grouse, and the ducks. Here is a couple old pictures from a while back.
 
Last edited:
If you are interested I am planning on running up the Mt. Baldy road (off of gold camp) on Sunday afternoon starting about 3:30. It's usually pretty quiet up there on Sunday afternoons. You guys are welcome to join me if you'd like to.

Greg
 
Had a great time

Well, we ended up taking Mt. Herman Road out of Monument...
http://img33.imageshack.us/img33/5153/mthermanroad.jpg
then, traveled about half way down Balancing Rock Road, where we had a nice picnic...
http://img232.imageshack.us/img232/4946/balancedrockroad.jpg
then took Hotel Gulch to…
http://img821.imageshack.us/img821/2097/hotelgulch.jpg
Manitou Park.
http://img684.imageshack.us/img684/1918/manitouparklake.jpg
Thanks for all the advice guys. I was a bit worried that the family wouldn’t enjoy it was much as I knew I would, but my girls laughed most of the way and my wife absolutely loved it. She took 220+ pictures!
Looking forward to the next trip,
-Travis

Oh yeah... Not one knucklehead the whole trip! :)
 
Sounds like a nice trip.

Can't believe how dry it is in those pics.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Share this page

Back
Top Bottom