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Level:
Length: 1 mi (1.6 km)
Surface: Other
Configuration: Out & Back
Elevation: +3,329/ -2,394 ft
Total: 30 riders
Mountain Biking Smuggler Road
#329 of 1,392 mountain bike trails in Colorado
Don't be fooled by the distance, this trail is 1.3 miles of hardcore, uphill, rocky mountain biking; I once saw Lance Armstrong training on this trail. Start at the base right out of the parking lot. You go up a few switchbacks, then one long switchback and after you finish the long one you turn right and come to a small cut-off to a platform, it's hard to miss. This platform is the top of the trail. Across the road from the platform is the cutoff to the Hunter Creek Trail which is a great way to make Smuggler into a longer ride. You can also continue up Smuggler (it gets even steeper and rockier) to Warren Lakes.
First added by cassjacks3 on Jun 29, 2011. Last updated Apr 28, 2020. → add an update
Before you go
- Drinking water: unknown
- Lift service: unknown
- Night riding: unknown
- Pump track: unknown
- Restrooms: unknown
- Fat bike grooming: unknown
- E-bikes allowed: unknown
- Fee required: unknown
This trail information is user-generated. Help improve this information by suggesting a correction.
If you are coming off Independence Pass going West, turn right on Park Avenue. Continue down on this road, it turns into Park Circle. Slide right onto Co Rd 20/Smuggler Mountain Road. Take a right after a couple hundred feet and you will be at the dirt parking lot at the base of the trail.
Yeah this is a rocky, not overtly technical (not more than moderate. I'm an ole man and ride a Moots soft tail YBB), double track "meat grinder" of ~ 900 ft of vertical. I rode it last weekend for the first time with a bunch of locals and former locals on the way up to Four Corners and the Van Horn Valley for more single track through the trees. These upper trails provided some incredible vista views at 10K feet looking up at the Maroon Bells and Pyramid Peak to the west.
Smuggler's is a very popular trail for ambulatory locals with their animals up to the 'platform'. Thus I would only consider descending this early in the am or pick another great descent, like screaming down Red Mtn. Above Smuggler's you will see a rare runner but nearly only mtbrs. Supposedly, the unofficial record is 11.5 mins set by one of the European pros before last year's America's Pro Cycling Challenge (road cyclist).
* Review edited 6/18/2012
| ThankThis is a great trail. It is more of a road with some steep climbs, but there are amazing views along the whole thing. Also, it is a popular trail for hikers, so beware. This trail gives access to a bunch of other trails that go up to hunter creek and red mountain. Those give awesome views too.
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