The town of Idaho Springs, CO, has long been caught in between bigger destinations. The city sits roughly halfway between the Denver metro area and the dozen or so ski resorts an hour west. Naturally, its location positions it as a great pit stop for coffee on the way to the slopes or for pizza and a beer on the way back down.
Idaho Springs’ roughly 2,000 residents, nestled next to the tireless I-70 freeway, are rooted in the area’s biggest economic drivers: mining, and the ski and service industry, which cater to the town’s passers-by. With the addition of a new, advanced mountain bike trail system built on the site of well-known former “pirate” trails, Idaho Springs may get its biggest economic boost in ages.
Big plans for a little mountain town
There are two big components to the Virginia Canyon Mountain Park (VCMP), which is set to open its first trails in late summer or early fall of 2024. First, the addition of 12 miles of world-class, intermediate to expert mountain bike trails. The trails will be open to e-bikes, accessible by gondola, and there is a moderately graded, 4-mile climbing trail, all to take riders to the top of VCMP and the start of several downhill mountain bike trails.
Second is the addition of the Mighty Argo Cable Car (MACC), a 1.2-mile gondola anchored in downtown Idaho Springs and stretching to the top of Virginia Canyon, where it will land at Miner’s Point, a hub and hangout with food and beverage vendors, a pavilion, and an amphitheater.
“I think you could start to make the case for the Front Range becoming a destination soon and at the heart of that would be Idaho Springs and Blackhawk,” said Gary Moore, the executive director of the Colorado Mountain Bike Association (COMBA).
VCMP is COMBA’s third project after the accomplishments of two new mountain bike trail networks just minutes away. Floyd Hill, 10 minutes from Idaho Springs, was COMBA’s first bike-optimized trail network and sits off an I-70 exit. Since it opened in 2019, Floyd Hill has become a popular stop for riders who want a quick, challenging trail ride without worrying about conflict with other trail users, unlike many other trails on the Front Range.
Floyd Hill still stands up as a favorite for enduro riders on the Front Range of Colorado and came at a time when many of those riders needed a new kind of mountain biking experience.
Maryland Mountain in Black Hawk is a 20-minute drive from Idaho Springs and was supported by the City of Black Hawk, a town with a rich mining history that became Colorado’s gambling center. While Maryland Mountain and its great network of trails fills up its trailhead parking lots every weekend in the summer, mountain bikers haven’t quite yet flocked to local establishments. The trailhead sits away from downtown, most restaurants are tucked into casinos, and a lot of parking spots are in parking garages where most don’t want to leave their bike.
VCMP, with the new food and beverage options at the top of the gondola, will also have a plethora of food and beverage options in town, like Tommyknocker Brewery and BeauJo’s Pizza, two Colorado mainstays. The city is already positioned to take advantage of any potential economic boost mountain bikers may bring in.
The Mighty Argo Cable Car
While COMBA plans to open the first set of trails at VCMP soon, the gondola likely won’t open for another year. The MACC is the cherry on top of VCMP. Not only can mountain bikers access a new public trail network that honors the steep and rocky former trails of Virginia Canyon, but for $30, they can also skip the climb. The City will receive 50 cents of every ticket sold, and Idaho Springs residents can ride for free. The Argo estimates between 500,000 and 700,000 people will ride the gondola each year.
Moore, who highlighted the partnership between the three entities at VCMP — the City of Idaho Springs, the Argo Mine and Mill, and COMBA — said the mountain bike and hiking trails were going to happen whether there was a gondola or not, and for a little while, it looked like it may not be happening.
Argo owners planned to break ground on the gondola back in 2019, but $5 million in investor funding disappeared due to an alleged scam by an escrow company, according to The Colorado Sun. The MACC investors sued the escrow group in 2021 and a U.S. District Court judge awarded the investors $8.7 million in damages in 2022. The alleged thieves have been accused by federal prosecutors of stealing almost $15 million total from different companies and individuals. A trial is set for 2025.
The “Trek Trails at Virginia Canyon Mountain Park”
The gondola isn’t the only pricey project at VCMP. Trails are always a hefty investment, and VCMP is no different. COMBA says they’ve already completed around a million dollars in trail building.
COMBA’s building efforts were somewhat delayed by the MACC dispute, which is giving COMBA a $400,000 “revenue share advance” and will help keep trail builders’ shovels digging.
Between Great Outdoors Colorado, a public lands advocacy nonprofit, and Colorado Parks and Wildlife, COMBA has received over $700,000 in different grants, and last year Trek Bikes chipped in $250,000, thus rebranding the trails as “Trek Trails at Virginia Canyon Mountain Park.” Still, fully funding trail projects is never as easy as it sounds, says Moore, and COMBA is always looking for willing donors, or even volunteers.
The VCMP concept dates back to 2017, when the City and COMBA first struck up a conversation about utilizing Virginia Canyon for a city-supported trail system. In 2019 after several stakeholder and city meetings, they had their first concept map, drawn up by trail builder Tony Boone.
Maps and project estimates never translate perfectly to actual fresh singletrack, though.
“It’s super steep and rugged,” said Moore. Like most of Colorado’s trails, there is a lot of bedrock, and like the trails in Black Hawk, there are old mine tailings dotted through the landscape. Builders found carving the trails to be a time-consuming process, switching back and forth between the excavator — which can quickly bench cut a trail, unless of course there is a massive boulder — and a jackhammer.
Then there are the massive wooden features being built throughout the system: rainbow bridges, plum drops, step downs, and corkscrews made from fallen trees in the area and cut on-site. All the trails and features will be reviewed by COMBA, nd local government officials, and first responders. It’s a far cry from the trails hand dug by renegade mountain bikers who have been riding in Virginia Canyon, on both private and public property, for the past decade or two.
Going legit
While COMBA and the City of Idaho Springs were working in the background on the concept for VCMP, mountain bikers were still shuttling up Virginia Canyon road and bombing down Rosa Gulch and other pirate trails. Eventually, COMBA reached out to one of the local builders and riders to talk about the park.
“To be frankly honest with you, my reaction was, ‘damn, there goes our area. Our pirate zone,’” said Leigh Harris.
Harris describes himself as a “downhill mountain biker at heart.” He’s raced for over a decade and said it was hard to find a good place to train, but the Idaho Springs’ trails were always there, and they tried to keep the landowners happy. He’s seen handfuls of World Cup downhill riders visit Idaho Springs to ride the renegade system.
“But when I started to look into it and what they’re allowing and what the area is going to turn into, I quickly realized this is a massive opportunity. This will be a mecca of biking in the area — in Colorado,” said Harris. “It will be. One hundred percent. Their whole goal is they don’t want people passing Idaho Springs. They want people stopping there, that should be the destination. And to add a year-round gondola and everything they’re proposing. It changed the light for me.”
COMBA invited Harris and other trail builders to craft a short trail, or alternate line. The inspiration for Harris came quickly. He and the Renegade Trail Crew would memorialize one of their friends, Craig Lange, who passed away racing in Angel Fire, NM, in 2010. The memorial trail will have a rainbow bridge, and Harris hopes to put Lange’s bike as a memorial underneath.
The Renegade Trail Crew has now focused their efforts on helping COMBA with the VCMP trails. Moore of COMBA said they’ve been a great team of builders who have an excellent eye.
On the trails
I joined Moore on an August afternoon to get a glimpse of their progress ahead of the trails’ official opening. We parked at the base of VCMP by the Argo Mill, but that won’t be a part of the normal experience. When VCMP opens for riding, mountain bikers will be encouraged to park throughout the city as parking at the mill will be unavailable.
We started up Rosa Gulch, now a 4-mile climbing trail with an easy grade and about 1,200 feet of gain. It’s an aerobic ride and one of the easier climbs on the Front Range. The switchbacks are deliberately tight and will force you to fold your handlebars to navigate the many turns. It’s all in order to discourage mountain bikers from riding down, since it’s a multi-use trail and two-way for hikers. Rosa Gulch also connects to two hiker-only trails: 10 Day Jacks and the Buttermilk Peak trail.
We stopped at the top of Drop Shaft, the flagship bike-only, downhill trail sitting just below Miners Point. Flow Ride Concepts built the trail, and it feels familiar to other projects they’ve built, like Rutabaga Ride at Lair o’ the Bear and Floyd Hill. Drop Shaft turned out to be a little more right of center on the beginner to advanced spectrum. It is wide and flowy, with seamless rock kickers tucked away here and there, with drops and senders of all sizes, and many tabletop jumps.
We stayed on Rosa Gulch and Drop Shaft, but there are several alternate lines all the way down and around the mountain. Moore said they’re trying a new trail rating system at VCMP with a 1-10 difficulty scale, and they hope it will help riders find the most suitable trails.
Since all the trails are within two opposing mountain ridges in one canyon corridor, the network is tight, and the climbing trail parallels the downhill trail in many spots. As COMBA thinks about the future, there’s a possibility the network will only get tighter with more singletrack. It’ll take a little imagination to envision what the network might look like in a year or two, with a gondola and thousands of riders, hikers, and visitors at VCMP, zipping down the mountain or up the gondola to catch a concert and a bite. VCMP looks to be a one-of-a-kind trail system not just for Colorado, but the country.
