{"id":2910,"date":"2012-06-27T08:25:01","date_gmt":"2012-06-27T14:25:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/14erskiers.com\/blog\/?p=2910"},"modified":"2012-06-27T18:05:45","modified_gmt":"2012-06-28T00:05:45","slug":"co-trail-segment-11-mt-massive-to-clear-creek","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/14erskiers.com\/blog\/2012\/06\/co-trail-segment-11-mt-massive-to-clear-creek\/","title":{"rendered":"CO Trail Segment 11: Mt Massive to Clear Creek"},"content":{"rendered":"

With my friend Chris Webster up in the mountains with no real plan other than escaping the 100 degree heat that has been plaguing the front range, and looking for a riding partner, I decided to head over to the Arkansas valley for some Colorado Trail riding<\/a>. While I had been on much of this segment in the past, from Mt Massive to Twin Lakes, I hadn’t completed it and it seemed like a good choice to utilize a shuttle. It’s a fairly quick shuttle, with both trailheads close to Highway 24.<\/p>\n

The Halfmoon creek area is very popular, with trailheads for both Mt Massive and Mt Elbert- in fact I would even guess that it is the most popular trailhead outside the Denver metro area and Monarch Crest. Just something to consider, as this would possibly make for a better ride mid-week or in the fall. Even so, it wasn’t really that crowded and it was only in a couple of areas (near both the Mt Elbert trailheads and the North shore of Twin Lakes). Riding this section in the Den-Dur direction is recommended, since there is a 1,000′ drop in trailhead elevation and the climbs from Clear Creek and Twin Lakes in the opposite direction would be rough (but doable as an out and back if needed).<\/p>\n

The Map:
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On to photos:
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The descent to Twin Lakes is fun and the backdrop is pretty amazing.<\/p>\n


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Once you reach Twin Lakes, there are several miles of gravelly sagebrush riding on the shores of the lakes- quite a unique section of trail. Eventually you cross the bridge and enter the forest once again on the North side of the lake, when the temps finally drop again.
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The climb out of Twin lakes isn’t too bad, and leads to more great riding (hey, it’s the CT, that happens constantly). One navigation note- there is a 100 yard stretch in this zone that is inexplicably grassy and it may seem like you’re off-route, but the trail quickly reverts back to a normal width.
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Don’t fall off bridges, Chris! \ud83d\ude42
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Final descent towards Clear Creek:
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That’s it for this segment- 22.7 miles, 2 hours 45 minutes, 2,900′ up and 4,000′ down. It’s a good one, and one of the more straightforward. Stay tuned for more CT reports, as I completed 3 other sections on this quick 2-day trip.<\/p>\n

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With my friend Chris Webster up in the mountains with no real plan other than escaping the 100 degree heat<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2910","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-biking"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/14erskiers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2910","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/14erskiers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/14erskiers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/14erskiers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/14erskiers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2910"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/14erskiers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2910\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2917,"href":"https:\/\/14erskiers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2910\/revisions\/2917"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/14erskiers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2910"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/14erskiers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2910"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/14erskiers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2910"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}