{"id":416606,"date":"2015-09-23T09:53:16","date_gmt":"2015-09-23T15:53:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/14erskiers.com\/blog\/?p=416606"},"modified":"2015-09-23T09:53:16","modified_gmt":"2015-09-23T15:53:16","slug":"lily-lake-trail","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/14erskiers.com\/blog\/2015\/09\/lily-lake-trail\/","title":{"rendered":"Lily Lake Trail"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>A few days ago, I crashed my bike on the Upper loop trail.  I wish I could say that I was doing something really gnarly, or I crashed while being chased by wolves, mountain lions and bears, but it wasn&#8217;t that interesting.  Just a spot I&#8217;d ridden about a thousand times or so.  Thankfully, the only damage was some extensive road rash.  Anyway, the point of the story is that I was looking for an easier ride last weekend, hoping to avoid another crash.  Since I&#8217;d never ridden Lily lake (the one near Kebler Pass, not the one in Taylor Park), Brittany and I thought that might be a good place to explore.<\/p>\n<p>We&#8217;ve ridden our snowmobiles in the Lily lake area quite a few times, but this was the first time in the summer.  The lake has always been just a powder meadow for us.  We decided to ride this loop in a clockwise direction, which  I would have to say is the better direction.  This means that we started off on Splain&#8217;s gulch before getting on the trail.<br \/>\n<img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/14erskiers.com\/blog\/wp-content\/gallery\/lily-lake-9-19-15\/3938.jpg\" width=\"800\" height=\"600\" alt=\"mountain biking the lily lake trail near crested butte\" class=\"alignleft\" \/><\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/14erskiers.com\/blog\/wp-content\/gallery\/lily-lake-9-19-15\/brit1.jpg\" width=\"800\" height=\"450\" alt=\"lily lake mountain biking crested butte\" class=\"alignleft\" \/><\/p>\n<p>The trail follows an old road grade, and there isn&#8217;t much elevation change, and passes through the same meadows that makes it popular with snowmobiles in the winter.  It was actually really pretty on this perfect fall day.<br \/>\n<img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/14erskiers.com\/blog\/wp-content\/gallery\/lily-lake-9-19-15\/brit3.jpg\" width=\"800\" height=\"450\" alt=\"Lily Lake Colorado\" class=\"alignleft\" \/><\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/14erskiers.com\/blog\/wp-content\/gallery\/lily-lake-9-19-15\/brit2.jpg\" width=\"800\" height=\"450\" alt=\"View of Anthracites from Lily Lake\" class=\"alignleft\" \/><\/p>\n<p>The trail doesn&#8217;t actually go to the lake, but a short spur trail does.  Strangely, the lake is filled with lilies.<br \/>\n<img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/14erskiers.com\/blog\/wp-content\/gallery\/lily-lake-9-19-15\/3948.jpg\" width=\"800\" height=\"600\" alt=\"lilies in Lily Lake near Crested Butte\" class=\"alignleft\" \/><\/p>\n<p>Farther on, there&#8217;s another spur trail, this time leading to a nice overlook of the Ohio Creek valley:<br \/>\n<img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/14erskiers.com\/blog\/wp-content\/gallery\/lily-lake-9-19-15\/3952.jpg\" width=\"800\" height=\"600\" alt=\"Ohio Creek valley near Gunnison Colorado\" class=\"alignleft\" \/><\/p>\n<p>Once we reached Ohio Pass road, we headed towards Kebler Pass and then jumped on the Wagon trail for a short downhill.<br \/>\n<img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/14erskiers.com\/blog\/wp-content\/gallery\/lily-lake-9-19-15\/3960.jpg\" width=\"800\" height=\"600\" alt=\"Wagon trail Crested Butte Colorado\" class=\"alignleft\" \/><\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/14erskiers.com\/blog\/wp-content\/gallery\/lily-lake-9-19-15\/3964.jpg\" width=\"800\" height=\"600\" alt=\"Wagon trail crested butte\" class=\"alignleft\" \/><\/p>\n<p>Exploring the Lily lake trail was a good call for us last weekend, and I managed to keep the rubber side down this time.  There are more exciting trails in Crested Butte, and while it was fairly scenic, I don&#8217;t think the Lily Lake trail will be joining my list of &#8220;must-do&#8221; trails every summer.  I&#8217;m sure others may think this is the greatest trail in the valley, however.<\/p>\n<p><strong>By the numbers:<\/strong><br \/>\n(Starting at the winter closure trailhead on Kebler Pass)<br \/>\n13.4 miles<br \/>\n1 hour, 40 minutes<\/p>\n<p><script type=\"text\/javascript\" src=\"\/\/www.avantlink.com\/link.php?ml=387082&amp;p=23393&amp;pw=29053\"><\/script><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A few days ago, I crashed my bike on the Upper loop trail. I wish I could say that I<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":416633,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-416606","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-biking","category-crested-butte"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/14erskiers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/416606","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=416606"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/14erskiers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/416606\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":416634,"href":"https:\/\/14erskiers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/416606\/revisions\/416634"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/14erskiers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/416633"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/14erskiers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=416606"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/14erskiers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=416606"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/14erskiers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=416606"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}