{"id":1310073,"date":"2019-05-08T19:00:08","date_gmt":"2019-05-09T01:00:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.postindependent.com\/?p=977680"},"modified":"2019-05-08T19:00:08","modified_gmt":"2019-05-09T01:00:08","slug":"roaring-fork-mountain-bike-association-glenwood-celebrate-completion-of-newest-south-canyon-trails","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/local-news\/roaring-fork-mountain-bike-association-glenwood-celebrate-completion-of-newest-south-canyon-trails\/","title":{"rendered":"Roaring Fork Mountain Bike Association, Glenwood celebrate completion of newest South Canyon trails"},"content":{"rendered":"
Mayor Jonathan Godes and Roaring Fork Mountain Bike Executive Director do the honors as the South Canyon Trail System ribbon cutting.<\/strong>
Matthew Bennett\/Post Independent<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Volunteers cleared debris as Guns N\u2019 Roses \u201cWelcome To The Jungle\u201d blared over a loudspeaker at South Canyon\u2019s cleanup and ribbon cutting ceremony Tuesday evening to mark the opening of new trails.<\/p>\n

Standing on a recently installed new bridge, Glenwood Springs Mayor Jonathan Godes and Roaring Fork Mountain Bike Association (RFMBA) Executive Director Mike Pritchard cut the red ribbon to celebrate the addition of three new trails to the South Canyon Trail System.<\/p>\n

In 2015, RFMBA worked on a concept trails plan for areas surrounding the city. The plan studied how to evolve current trails, but also identified land for potential new trail systems.<\/p>\n

Shortly after its completion, the city and Garfield County helped with getting the wheels rolling even more so by contributing funds to RFMBA and its partners\u2019 efforts.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe hired some professionals who helped us identify the unique opportunities and constraints within the canyon here,\u201d Pritchard said of the way funding facilitated the South Canyon trails plan.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe were able to come up with a trail system that\u2019s maybe about 18 miles of trail, over the coming years,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

A significant portion, 8.5 of those 18 miles, were completed last fall and include three trails known as Tramway Trail, Lightning Bug and Coal Camp.<\/p>\n

Tramway Trail<\/h4>\n

Classified as easy, the shared use Tramway Trail features a 780-foot ascent spanning 3.2 miles. The two-way trail utilizes the Canyon\u2019s eastern slopes with portions following the same route that was once used to transport coal to the railway at the Colorado River.<\/p>\n

The Tramway Trail, in particular, begins with a repurposed bridge that was moved from its former resting place on Red Mountain.<\/p>\n

\u201cPart of the project was to install this new bridge and to get trailhead map signs in at two locations,\u201d Pritchard said. \u201cAnd, we have intersection signage at each of the trails so that people can find their way. The trails are bike optimized, but we do see hikers and runners enjoying the trails.\u201d<\/p>\n

Lightning Bug<\/h4>\n

With a 450-foot descent spanning 1.7 miles, Lightning Bug earns a \u201cmore difficult\u201d classification and travels downhill only.<\/p>\n

According to the South Canyon history description, Lightning Bug was the name given to the electric locomotive that ran on the original South Canyon coal mine tramway\u2019s gauge tracks.<\/p>\n

The name was coined by miners who saw sparks fly when the trolley\u2019s overhead lines transitioned between circuits and wires.<\/p>\n

Coal Camp<\/h4>\n

Also categorized as \u201cmore difficult,\u201d Coal Camp ascends and descends 915 feet over 3.6 miles. The trail begins in the canyon\u2019s lower meadow before a steep climb takes users through shady spruce and a pine forest. Coal Camp was a nickname given to the 1903 company town that took shape to support the area\u2019s mining operations.<\/p>\n

Future South Canyon trails, not yet completed, include the Alpine Slide, Red Onion, Gem Trail and Horse Mountain.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s really awesome to see these dozens of volunteers just taking the bull by the horns and saying, \u2018we want this asset to be nice, welcoming and safe for everybody.\u2019\u201d Mayor Godes said. \u201cIf you are going to take an area like South Canyon and develop something on it, having a low impact, non-motorized use is a great asset.\u201d<\/p>\n

According to Godes, all of the new South Canyon trails were designed to respect other uses and facets of the canyon, including the Glenwood Springs Gun Club, the city-owned landfill, historic coal mining artifacts and wildlife habitat.<\/p>\n

mabennett@postindependent.com<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

via:: Post Independent<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Mayor Jonathan Godes and Roaring Fork Mountain Bike Executive Director do the honors as the South Canyon Trail System ribbon cutting.Matthew Bennett\/Post Independent Volunteers cleared debris as Guns N\u2019 Roses \u201cWelcome To The Jungle\u201d blared over a loudspeaker at South Canyon\u2019s cleanup and ribbon cutting ceremony Tuesday evening to mark the opening of new trails. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[160],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-1310073","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-local-news"},"acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-06-17 02:44:20","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"distributor_meta":false,"distributor_terms":false,"distributor_media":false,"distributor_original_site_name":"KSKE Ski Country","distributor_original_site_url":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske","push-errors":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1310073","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1310073"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1310073\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1310073"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1310073"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1310073"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}