Filed Under: Cycling, Hiking, Running
A beautiful open space park with about 3000 acres. Popular with equestrians, bikers (almost always polite), and hikers. There are many miles of trails in this park, so you can go for a short run up to a marathon if you want. The lowest point is the lower trail head at 6150 ft. The highest point is on Belcher Hill at around 8000 ft. The upper lot is at 7500 ft. Many of the trails are interconnected, so you can string together the distances to match your desire. From the lower lot, there is lots of climbing, so don't go out too hard to early. The trails are pretty gnarly in places - particularly the Longhorn and Shorthorn trails. Be prepared to do lots of stair like climbing over rocks and water bars, too.
To run the 7.7 course - start out at the trail head (lower one off 56th street). Start running and you will soon be on Belcher Hill trail. When you come to Longhorn, make a right and start running on Longhorn trail for a short distance. Soon you'll come to Shorthorn, and turn onto the Shorthorn trail. Continue on Shorthorn and it'll reconnect with Longhorn. You'll come to the second higher parking lot, and continue on Sawmill. It'll go through a large meadow near the parking lot. Continue descending on Sawmill until you reconnect with Belcher Hill. Keep descending until you come back to the lower parking lot.There are two ways to access this trail. Use CO 93 (Golden to Boulder, or vice-versa) and north of North Table Mountain you'll see 56th Ave. Go west on this (it has a sign directing you to White Ranch Open Space) and you'll see the trail head on your left. If you want to start at the upper parking lot, go in through Golden Gate Canyon Drive, which is a little farther south on CO 93. Here is the link to the open space:
http://www.co.jefferson.co.us/ext/dpt/comm_res/openspac/white.htm
Posted by: lenticular and last modified on Feb 13, 2007 by sean
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