Colorado River Trail

Since it was Memorial Day weekend we wanted to hit a trail in the western part of Rocky Mountain National Park to avoid the crowds on the east side.  We decided to try the Colorado River Trail that goes to LuLu City.  Once we made it over Trail Ridge Road we stopped at the Colorado River trailhead and had lunch (Go here to read about our trip through RMNP to get there).  After lunch we closed up the Hummer and hit the trail.

As the name implies, this trail runs along the east bank of the Colorado River.  The trail is a long, gradual downhill hike toward LuLu City.  The beginning of the trail was wide and smooth, with enough room to walk side by side.  We regularly ran into little streams from the spring run-off that we had to cross, as well as snow drifts across the trail.  Some of the streams had bridges across them, but most of them had to be jumped or waded across.  It was obvious that spring had only barely just arrived in the high country.

After a little while through the trees we got to a large meadow with an intersection.  We took the right path to stay on the same trail.  It started to rain just a little bit as we were crossing the meadow, but we decided to continue on.

The rain wasn’t so bad once we got back into the trees, but we continued to run into deep snow drifts and wide stream crossings.  Finally we hit a flooded section of the trail where a seasonal stream had filled in a low spot with several inches of water.  We had to carefully walk across on a log to keep Stacie’s feet from getting soaked (her hiking boots aren’t waterproof).  Once we got past that the trail improved a bit and moved down right onto the bank of the Colorado.

A short while later the trail moved east away from the river and into some thicker trees and a little bit more serious ups and downs.  The snow drifts really started covering the trail, but they were mostly packed enough to walk on.

When we finally cleared the trees and the snow again, we were able to see the cliff on our right and the tailings from the old mine.  This section also was home to several families of marmots.

Around this point the rain returned and we decided to head back.  On the way back we couldn’t help checking out the marmots again. As we headed back, the rain gradually got heavier and heavier, reinforcing the fact that we made the right decision.  Once we made it back to the Hummer we headed back for another white-knuckle drive over Trail Ridge Road and back home!

 

See all of the pictures: Gallery

Trail Information:
Name: Colorado River Trail / LuLu City Trail 
Location: Rocky Mountain National Park, CO
Length: 12.4 miles round trip (to LuLu City and back; we only hiked about 4 miles round trip)
Difficulty: Easy
GPX file: Download
Map:

Elevation Profile: