Cottonwood Loop - seeking timberline

It’s summer, and that means it’s time to do one of my favorite in-town rides, the Cottonwood Loop. The Cottonwood Loop is in the Arkansas Hills north of Salida. From town it’s a 20-mile round trip involving an eight-mile gravel ride up to the trailhead, followed by a twelve-mile single-track descent.

It’s a summer-time thing because in the winter, the upper part of the trail is gated off to give wildlife a break. Food is in short supply and things are stressful enough without having humans around. Probably a good idea, considering they have to deal with swarms of tourists hiking and biking every day the rest of the year. Not that the gate matters much. At 9,000 feet, the upper trails are typically under several feet of snow during that time of year so no one is up there anyway. When they open the trail in spring it feels like something special.

Cottonwood is one of my favorite rides because it feels like just the right mix of distance, technical difficulty and fun descending. It’s long enough that you feel like you went somewhere but not so long that you have to think about carrying extra food and water, or worry about whether you have the number for Search and Rescue in your contacts list. Depending on how you start and end the loop, it’s easy to make it even longer if the mood strikes you.

The technical features on these trails are the real deal, with enough gnar to keep the full-face helmet/shin guard crowd entertained. I do it on a cross-country bike because, well, that’s my bike. I still prioritize light weight over suspension travel. But this is one of those trails that’s truly best suited to long-travel trail bikes, all-mountain bikes, or whatever it is the bike industry has decided to call them these days. As you’ll see in the video, there are two particularly high-consequence sections that I walk, and I’ve been putting knobbies to dirt practically since the dinosaurs were around. These trails are definitely more than just riding along.

In terms of climb versus descent, the juice is unquestionably worth the squeeze on this one. Some people shuttle it, leaving one car in town and driving one to the trailhead. For the altitude challenged, Absolute Bikes also offers a shuttle van. But I like the ride up. It’s a good road, only mildly steep and the grade mellows the higher you climb. When you get to the top your legs are warmed up, ready to go. Oh, and yeah, my light-weight cross-country bike comes in real handy on the uphill bit.

Beasway trailhead. Start of the single track.