I was talking about Longwater, Hackett, and Metberry Gulches. They are all along Cedar Mtn Rd, Northwest of Woodland Park. Also in the area is Rule Ridge and Phantom Creek but those are rated at 2, pretty much dirt roads, Rule Ridge has a spur that is technical but it may not be worth running just for that. I ran Metberry recently with a friend on 3" and 31s and we had no issues up and down. Longwater and Hacket are rated a little higher, but are closed at the county line, and I haven't run either. That whole area is secluded and probably littered with places to camp. Be careful as always with camping and fires, there is already one up in Fort Collins from what I've seen and these trails are in the Hayman fire area. Honestly I think I would like to run China Wall as I have never been on that trail, and there seems to be a little something for everyone there. Of course I am open to suggestions, is Guanella Pass open this time of year? Not sure if they plow it in winter, I recently noticed they paved it most of the way.
Guanella is open all year, I think paved throughout now. I could be wrong, it's been several years since I've cruised that pass. China Wall seems like it would be a freaking blast.
Always careful with fire. Always carry lots of extra water that's always available. Always dig and rock my pits. Always make sure they're completely extinguished before I leave. I also like to replace the land I've taken for my pit and rake back anything I may have disturbed during my adventure. My old man has been a Littleton firefighter for the last 25 years or so and I've always had an interest in the wild land team. Seems like this year may be a good year to at least volunteer to get my foot in the door while I go to school for forestry in the fall.
However I did just discover China Wall is about 100 miles from the hogback.
So the schedule if we did that would be something like meet at the trail head of Slaughterhouse, run Slaughterhouse. Air back up at the loaf and jug, drive about 70 miles to China Wall, run that, then probly grab some grub and call it a day.
This may be a little far to string two trails, although I really want to run China Wall too. I'm not apposed at all.
Talk to us more about the woodland park stuff. Could we string together a good day of trails and get some good food on the way back?
I'm going to keep hunting on Trail Damage maybe there's some more cool stuff by China Wall and we'll skip Slaughterhouse, although to be honest it's a cool trail just cause it's pretty long.
Keep talkin guys we'll figure this out. I'm cool to drive to China Wall, I'm cool to drive up to LHC, I'm cool to drive down to Woodland park.
So one of ya'll is up North and Squirrel is pretty much over by me in the Southish Denver Metro Area.
JMadigan, are you down to drive down from Thornton? Slaughterhouse is a cool trail, and it's kinda central if we wanna find some stuff to string together in the kinda central easternish mountain area.
Wouldn't be that big of a deal to run Slaughterhouse. If we ran it and worked our way down 285 we could hit a bunch of stuff..
http://www.traildamage.com/trails/index.php?id=50
Look at all the trails near that one. Then go on
http://www.4x4trails.net/ and you can see a map. Slaughterhouse is just West of Bailey, follow 285 further west and you'll see Webster pass and all those trails. I have not been on any of them though.