scaqaboutwest: Gold Dust Trail

The Gold Dust Trail starts in Como, CO, which you'll find about 75 miles southwest of Denver on Highway 285. We read about this trail it in our newest guidebook and thought we'd give it a try. Finding Como was easy. Finding the trailhead was not. Eventually we did.

The trail leaves Como at about 9800 ft and over a distance of about 9 miles, ascends somewhat gradually to 11,400 ft at Boreas Pass. The book suggests doing this ride using a shuttle, and riding only in the downhill direction. I prefer to torture my wife and children by making them ride uphill first and then back down. Another option might have been to bicycle up the gravel road from Como to the pass and then ride the trail down. Instead, we attempted to ride up the Gold Dust Trail first, and then ride it back down after reaching the pass. As you may already have inferred, it didn't quite work out. Sometimes thing don't, and that's OK.

Como is on the edge of a huge valley, and occasionally the forest opened up to give us some great views.

The Chameleon blends in with the trees.

The boy and the dog cross a small creek. Once we were above the lower portions of the creek, which had been decimated by historic mining, the valley was quite beautiful. More of that classic Colorado mountain scenery.

Below, we're riding the road back down after deciding the ascent was just a little too much for us this time. Maybe we'll try again when we're all a little bigger. Running four miles on hard gravel road was too much for Mousie's feet. He had some holes worn through his pads when we finished.

We wanted to see the pass, so after getting back to Como on the bikes, we drove up to the pass and had lunch. It was chilly up there at 11,400 ft.

The girls were kind enough to let Quinn and me check out the downhill ride from the pass; they met us in the truck about half way down. Below, Quinn drops off a sharp ledge into a steep downhill.

The ride down from the pass started with a steep and rocky old two-track that was fast and rough, but wasn't really all that fun. Well, fun is relative; of course it was fun. But it got to be more fun after a couple of miles when the trail entered an old mining flume. The flume descends at a gradual but very steady rate, and the flume, which is really just a ditch, provides nicely bermed corners so it's sort of a like a bobsled track. It felt a little artificial, but it was enjoyable.