Friday, August 31, 2007

I was fortunate enough to be invited on a hike with Boulder County Open Space tonight. Our mission was to check out 1/2 of the proposed trail corridor that will take us from Heil Ranch to Lyons. We drove in to the northernmost part of the blue dashed line on the map. From there, we hiked up to the trail's junction with the Wild Turkey trail.

There were wide open meadows with beautiful views.




We encountered several old rock quarries (this is the biggest one, but they are everywhere in Heil. Most of the CU Campus was quarried in Heil).


There were some nice flowy lines and some switchbacks. I like this shot - it looks like they are doing a good job with the contour.


I had been wondering what the county was going to do with the marshy areas on the Wild Turkey Trail. Also, Wild Turkey will open either on Friday 9/14 or Sat 9/15! Of 2007!!!!!

We will walk the northern 1/2 of the connector in a few weeks. I will do my best to keep everone informed. The southern 1/2 looks great. There were a few minor things here and there, but we gave the thumbs up at the end of the day. Boulder County agreed and is ready to proceed. They start work on it as soon as Wild Turkey opens. The trail crew and administrators would like us to be riding from Heil to Lyons on the connector by Fall of 2008, but a lot of that depends on how severe our upcoming winter is. I can't wait to see it complete!

4 comments:

Tree said...

Looks sweet!! How long will the connector trail be?

Anonymous said...

That's cool. Any mention of trails from Boulder to Heil Ranch?

redstone said...

The connector will end up being 5-6 miles long, depending on where the trailhead is located.

Anon - From Boulder ->Foothills trail under 36 to Boulder Valley Ranch. Take the Left Hand Trail (I think that's the one) all the way to Neva Rd. At Neva Rd, you go north about a mile on gravel rd and west about a mile and it puts you out right at the entrance to Left Hand Canyon. You've got a mile or so of pavement before the turn to Heil.

Anything outside of that route is unlikely in the near future, as a singletrack directly to Heil will need to involve a cooperation of Boulder City, Boulder County, and private. It's in the works, but it is a long, long way off.

debaser said...

Awesome Dave, thanks for heading up there! That terrain looks beatiful.