The Ride on Halloween

We recently learned about the newly completed North Fork Trail, which heads down and southeast out of Reynolds Park, one of the Jefferson County Open Space parks. It's located just a little to the east of the Buffalo Creek Recreation Area. Since it was an out-and-back ride, we wanted to be sure to start from the bottom of the trail so we could ride up first and then return going down (possibly the mountain biking Prime Directive). The trail head is a little off the beaten path, so rather than follow our usual paved route out Highway 285 towards Buffalo Creek, we took the road much less traveled: Highway 67, which included a long winding drive over steep, unpaved back roads.

The trail was nice. Freshly machine-cut into the side of the mountain, and painstakingly worked by hand into a wide smooth tread. Lot's of labor went into this. One could easily ride a cyclo-cross style bike on it (but, why would you want to do that?). The only obstacles were the occasional unconsolidated stretches of trail where horse hooves had sunken several inches into unconsolidated soil. The scenery was nice. It was quiet and remote. The ride uphill was pleasant, if a little slow. We rode about 8 miles up to Reynolds Park. The ride down was quick, but not especially exciting, as mountain bike rides go.

Haven't tried to figure out what this peak is, but we usually see it from the other side.

Some of that smooth trail, with some interesting smooth granite faces in the background.

The North Fork Trail coming up the valley.

Obnoxious boy on a bike.

Looking out over Reynolds Park. From here the trail drops quickly into the park, so we called it "the end" and turned around.

  
Happy Halloween.