Archives-Trails History

It was a gorgeous Saturday for a workday at Coulson Gulch. This was a multi-partner event with BMA, the Forest Service and BCHA volunteers. The BMA volunteers showed up enforce and got to work on trail maintenance. BCHA board members, Pat Holgate and Linda Parks picked up lunch at the Subway in North Boulder, arranged by Ed Perault with the Forest Service and BCHA, and headed up to feed the hard-working volunteers. After lunch there was a fun raffle and socializing. While we were there some area ca mpers left a fire pit burning and walked away to hike (dah)! Forest service called in a fire truck to put it out (ka-ching a $500 fine). So if you must have a campfire please be careful to bring enough water and a shovel on your trips to put it out before it puts out thousands of animals and homes. Warning to equestrians: The road up from the fork is gnarly, and absolutely not recommended for horse trailers. So if you are planning a ride there park below the fork in the road. This road is not maintained by forest service, it is maintained by county and let’s hope they grade it and put in drainage culverts in soon.

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