Madden/Gold Run/Starvation Loop
Exploration Day! From camp we rode up the gravel road to Madden Peak. It’s nice wide gravel for the first few miles and then gets increasingly rocky so it’s a good thing we were on mountain bikes. At the top we turned onto Old Gold Run singletrack and took that for miles. It was a a fun twisty trail through aspens that led us to Starvation Creek Trail. Both were advanced trails but this one more so, with loose rocks jumbling the trail and very narrow tread through colorful bushes. At the bottom we popped out on Cherry Creek Railroad grade and rode that back to camp. 18 miles and 2,200′ of climbing.
Jones Creek/Pinkerton Flagstaff/Dutch Creek/Hermosa Loop
This was an outstanding loop! We started from the bottom of Jones Creek and rode uphill to connect to Pinkerton Flagstaff Trail. Up we went even further on that, hiking in some spots. The weather was perfect and the trees were showing off their fall colors. The downhill on Dutch Creek was a blast, pretty technical in spots with roots, rocks, drops, high speed, cliffs, and cow poop. At the bottom we connected with Hermosa Creek to finish with a jet descent back to the truck. All done it was 21 miles 3,544′ of climbing. We both agreed this is the perfect loop with a little of everything.
Leave a Reply