Colorado Mountain Biking Full Of Challenges On Western Slope
Once MTBers go west over the Continental Divide in Colorado, a trio of bike parks with all manner of trails await at winter resorts that have retrofitted their lifts for bikers.
Up the Roaring Fork Valley, Snowmass takes charge of lift-assisted mountain biking in the Aspen complex. Its 25 miles of gravity and X-C trails take full advantage of the mountain's 3,000 vertical feet. An active bike park base has rentals, group and private instruction, and camps for kids.
Open daily, the Elk Camp Gondola gets everyone to 9,800 feet at mid-mountain, then the connecting Elk Camp high-speed finishes it off at the 11,325-foot summit of Burnt Mountain. A good start for new or leisurely riders is the skills park served by the short Meadows fixed-grip at mid-mountain. Then, the lower mountain offers the only green on the trail map, the meandering four-mile Verde Trail. The rest of the lower portion flows down four blue runs and a couple of gnarly technical blacks.
Up above, the toughest route is speedy Animal Crackers under the chairlift. To biker's left, a half-dozen blues -- both technical and freeride -- twist and turn down open meadows, interrupted by black-diamond Cowboy Coffee that eschews the contours.
Next stop is Steamboat. The lift-accessed bike park is taking shape at the northern Colorado resort, mirroring the recent overhaul of the lift system and base at "The 'Boat".
Served by the lower half of the new Wild Blue Gondola and its compatriot Steamboat Gondola, the downhill trail system drops 2,200 vertical feet. It offers plentiful greens, including 4.5-mile Tenderfoot, and five black-diamond runs that find the steep stuff around Tenderfoot. Six blue routes tend toward the biker's left under Steamboat Gondola. Most developed is blue tech Rustler's Ridge.
The upper half of the mountain is criss-crossed with single tracks and work roads that can be reached off the top of the gondolas only by willing uphill MTBers.
Out near Grand Junction, Powderhorn has developed a compact MTB park that leans toward the less adventurous. Half of its dozen trails rate green and all but one are labeled intermediate. Black-diamond Pinball Alley ignores contours with technical drops on upper and fast jumps on lower.
The high-speed quad Flattop Flyer does all the uphill hauling; it will run Friday-Sunday until September when it opens only on weekends. Most MTB runs go top to bottom, down 1,600 feet of vertical drop and covering about two miles.
Also on the Western Slope, both Telluride and Crested Butte have extensive lift-accessed mountain bike parks. Renowned downhill bike mecca Purgatory is closed for installation of a new winter chairlift.
