Fossil Ridge Trail One-Way

Dogs Off-leash

Features Commonly Backpacked · Fall Colors · Views · Wildflowers · Wildlife

This trail is a wonderful way to experience the awesomeness of the Fossil Ridge mountains. You can do it either direction, but this description goes from east to west. The route climbs and descends through mixed forests, and traverses a beautiful alpine plateau with excellent views.

Start at the Gold Creek Campground. The incline starts immediately as you run on a really beautiful trail through the forest. It's a mixed-use trail, you may see dirt bikes.

At a little over 2 miles in, the steep incline decreases quite a bit to give you some flat ground for a while. After about 3.5 miles in, there's a junction on your right that goes to Boulder Lake, it's about half a mile each way. It's super scenic and a good spot to fish or camp.

Otherwise, keep running on the trail through hilly forests and meadows. Since there are a lot of meadows and open spaces here, there is quite a bit of sun exposure. The trail is really easy to follow; you're never guessing where it disappeared to, but if you do find yourself off-trail, just use your GPS to find your way back again.

Eventually, you start dropping back down and into some shady forests. You continue descending and the pine forest changes to aspen when you get down low enough in elevation.
In the fall, the golden color of the aspen leaves is pretty phenomenal.

At the junction at about 12.5 miles, turn right for the Beaver McIntire Trail, and follow it for another couple miles until the road, unless you're doing an out and back, and then you can just turn around whenever you feel like it and head back into the aspen forest.

You can run this trail both ways as an out and back, but if you can figure out the logistics, it's nice to run it one way, starting at Gold Creek Campground and ending near Beaver Creek. For driving directions, take CO Rd 10 to CO Rd 743, AKA Lost Canyon Rd; pick-up is easiest along this road somewhere.