It’s been almost a year of riding the trails here in Salida and I still can’t get over how good they are. But lately, what’s really got me interested is the prospect of linking together the Colorado Trail and the Continental Divide trail into a single big loop doable in a day.  

Both the CT and the CDT run through the mountains near town.  They run generally parallel to each other, the CDT up high and the CT down lower.  The problem is that both trails are designed for epic through-hike/rides done over multiple days or weeks.  Need to run into Denver for a six pack of Coors and some smokes but don’t want to mess with all that annoying traffic on I-70?   Just hop on the Colorado Trail and, voila, you’re there!  Well in a week or so you’re there, but you get my drift. 

Looking at a map, by using some dirt roads as connectors, it’s definitely possible to link them into a loop, the question is, is it actually rideable in a day?  It looks like it would be a minimum of 60 – 80 miles, depending on how ambitions you want to get, so no matter what, it’s a serious undertaking. But you never know until you actually get out there and see the lay of the land.

To figure it out I’ve been doing reconnaissance rides of sections of the loop.  This week I set out to ride segment 14 of the Colorado Trail from the Blank Cabin trailhead at Mt. Shavano to Chalk Creek at Mt. Princeton, a distance of about 15 miles.  On a flat paved road 15 miles is nothing, right?  About 45 – 50 minutes.  On a mountain bike on one of our local mountain bike trails, maybe an hour and a half.  Plenty of people ride the Colorado Trail but it was originally built as a hiking trail.  As a result, it goes from smooth flowy single track through pine and aspen forests to gawd-awful, unrideable steep rocky hike-a-bike sections.  It’s all part of the adventure but it makes for much slower going than you’d imagine.  What I wanted to know is just how slow and how much energy I’d expend riding it.

By the time I arrived at the Blanks Cabin trailhead at the crack of 10:00 a.m. there were already a dozen or more cars in the parking lot.  Popular place!

The trail starts out running through some high mountain meadows.

But pretty quickly you’re jolted back to the reality of the Rocky Mountains with the first hike-a-bike section.

Followed by more smooth riding.

And more hike-a-bike.

Repeat that sequence about a half dozen times and pretty soon you get to Brown’s Creek.

Hey, I recognize that sign!

As the trail heads north around Mt. Antero, it descends into a huge open meadow scattered with large pine trees.

Mt. Princeton and the Chalk Cliffs come into view.

At Mt. Princeton the CT drops steeply off the last ridge down toward Chalk Creek. But rather than descending all the way to the creek, this is where I reached the first of my connector roads to make the loop. I took a left on County Road 290 where the CT crosses and headed up the road until it dead ends at a gate.

Past the gate is an old narrow-gauge railroad bed that is now a hiking trail. The tracks and ties are all gone, leaving nothing but a smooth, gradual climb for another two miles.

View of Chalk Lake from the railroad grade.

Approaching the Chalk Creek cascade and the road to St. Elmo.

That was it for the day’s reconnaissance. Ultimately, the route goes up the St. Elmo road to the ghost town of Hancock and over Chalk Creek pass but it was getting late and the afternoon thunderstorms were starting to brew in the sky overhead.

According to my Garmin the route was 15.5 miles and just under 2,500 feet of climbing, resulting in a ride time of 2.5 hours. Based on the terrain I wasn’t surprised it took that long. Of course, there was no sag wagon waiting to pick me up and take me home so I had to turn around and ride the whole thing back again. Thankfully, I managed beat the rain to my car.

I got back to the Blank Cabin trailhead just as several groups had finished their climbs of Mt. Shavano. I’m not sure who was more tired, me or them but I think we were equally happy to be done with our day’s outings.