Clare Tone

It was a beautiful day to ride at Dowdy Draw. My friends Andrea on Ayee, Jill on Goldie and myself on Broom had a wonderful ride. We got lucky and was able to pull in to the one trailer spot left at 10 AM Sunday morning. Our route was Dowdy Draw to Spring Gulch north to the conservation easement, part of Goshawk and then Spring Gulch on the return.  A beautiful spring day with great scenery, flowers, and mountain air. Pat H

Our neighbor to the south, Jefferson County Open Space, has recently completed a multi-use trail system at the North Table Mountain Open Space. The new trailhead is located off Highway 93 (just north of Golden), and offers a nice parking lot with space for seven horse trailers. There is currently a total of 14 miles of trail, arranged in several stacked loops, so you can choose how long you want to ride. Pat Holgate, Anne Davidson and I explored most of the new trails in mid-February and suggest that it “rides” best in a clockwise direction from the trailhead. This enables you to climb up the steep parts instead of descending them. Be prepared for some narrow, steep, and rocky parts; deer, mountain bikers, and spectacular views in every direction. The top is pretty exposed—so you probably don’t want to be up there on a very windy, stormy, or a very hot day. All in all it’s a unique ecosystem and it’s much more interesting than it might appear from down below. A Bit of Geology: Table Mountain was formed by a volcanic basalt flow about 60 million years ago, so you get very familiar with igneous rocks on this ride. Happy Trails Suzanne Webel