Clear Creek Canyon's Trail Reaches Huntsman's Rancho in November. The Next Mile Will Take Years.

On Nov. 6, Jefferson County Open Space plans to open the Huntsman's Rancho segment of the Clear Creek Trail in Clear Creek Canyon Park. It adds 1.5 miles of ADA-compliant trail above Golden, plus creek access points and a new trailhead lot with about 70 spaces, according to the Golden Transcript. That makes the paved trail up the canyon from the Gateway Trailhead about 4.75 miles long.

The CCR segment opened last November, and Huntsman's Rancho follows a year later. The next mile is three to four years away, according to the project manager. After that, the segment past Tunnel 2 runs into some of the hardest terrain in the canyon. For the rest of this decade, the Huntsman's Rancho trailhead is likely where the canyon trail will end.

Where the Pavement Ends on Nov. 6

The canyon trail was built one piece at a time, each starting where the last one stopped. Here is how the pieces add up once Huntsman's Rancho opens.

The Gateway Trailhead sits at the mouth of the canyon at the foot of Mount Zion, as the Denver Post describes it. Farther up the canyon is a separate three-mile paved stretch, the Mayhem Gulch segment. Its Big Easy trailhead has 54 parking spaces and a bridge that connects straight to the trail, according to Visit Golden. Between Huntsman's Rancho and Big Easy is the gap still to be built. Scot Grossman, Jeffco Open Space's project manager, put it at 5.75 miles in the Golden Transcript's coverage of his talk.

Jeffco's own segment map puts the project near US 6 mileposts 268 to 271 and labels it "Opens Late 2026." GoldenToday also reported the Nov. 6 date. It's still worth checking Jeffco Open Space's alerts before heading up that morning.

Why These Miles Came Fast

Jeffco's work on its part of the Clear Creek Trail goes back to 2005. In 2011, a Great Outdoors Colorado grant "kickstarted" the larger project, as Grossman told the Golden Transcript. That grant used the name Peaks to Plains Trail. Jeffco Open Space has since switched to Clear Creek Trail to match the name its partners use. Gateway opened in 2021. After that, crews kept building up the canyon without a break.

The cost explains the pace. The CCR and Huntsman's Rancho segments together cost $80 million, according to the Denver Post, which tied that price to the engineering challenges. Most of the money came from Jeffco Open Space, with help from Great Outdoors Colorado and the Denver Regional Council of Governments. The CCR segment includes 1,200 feet of trail on a viaduct, which the Post compared to the elevated highway decks in Glenwood Canyon. Huntsman's Rancho also rests partly on concrete pillars.

Even these miles ran late. In March, the Post reported that Huntsman's Rancho was "expected to open in late summer." A sign at the end of the trail promised it "this summer." It's opening in November instead. That's a short delay, and it came on a stretch that was already funded, designed and under construction.

The Cliff at Tunnel 2

The next 5.75 miles are a different job. At the Oct. 20 Golden Beer Talks, Grossman told a packed room at the Buffalo Rose that finishing Clear Creek Canyon Park would take about $100 million, according to the Golden Transcript. Westbound & Down was the featured brewery that night. Set that against the $80 million spent on the last 3 miles. The remaining stretch is almost twice as long, and the price tag is only about a quarter higher. GoldenToday's recap of the same talk reported that the next couple of years of construction are covered, and that Jeffco will keep applying for grants as they become available.

According to the Golden Transcript, Grossman said the remaining segments are mostly designed and that Jeffco is "chasing a lot of federal dollars" to build them. Even if all the money showed up today, construction would take four and a half years. An audience member asked when the canyon would be finished, and Grossman answered him directly:

"Give me another three or four years, and we'll have the first mile for you."

The hardest part comes after that first mile. Grossman singled out the area around Tunnel 2, with its sheer rock wall, as one of the most beautiful and iconic places in the canyon and one of the hardest to design and build around. The same rock attracts wildlife. Jeffco's 2026 seasonal notice closed some climbing areas uphill of US 6, from mile marker 266 to 270 and near Tunnel 2, from Feb. 1 through July 31 to protect nesting eagles.

So the trail opening next week is the one Golden will be using for several years. That makes it worth learning well.

A Trail Built for November

The Huntsman's Rancho segment opens at the start of the season when dirt trails in the foothills get muddy or icy, and the canyon trail is built for that. It's 10 feet wide, made of rust-tinted concrete chosen to blend with the canyon walls, and ADA compliant, so the grade never goes above 5%. The bridges have porches where people can stop for the view without blocking traffic. After 4 to 6 inches of snow last March, Jeffco plowed the trail the next morning. Spokesman Matt Robbins told the Denver Post it would do that "every time it snows." That was said in March. Whether it holds this winter is up to Jeffco.

A few basics for a first trip up:

• Hours: one hour before sunrise to one hour after sunset, daily, per Visit Golden. Early sunsets in November make the evening cutoff come sooner than you might expect.
• Uses: walking, running and biking.
• Dogs: on leash, no longer than 10 feet, under Jeffco's Recreation and Activity Management Guide.
• Fishing: allowed on Jeffco-managed waters unless posted otherwise, under Colorado Parks and Wildlife regulations, per the same Jeffco guide. The new segment adds more places to get down to the creek.

To get there from downtown without driving, use the Clear Creek Trail. It runs through town and links to the canyon trail east of the Gateway Trailhead. Visit Golden lists these in-town access points, from east to west:

1. Lions Park, at 10th and Maple
2. The library, at 10th and Illinois
3. The Welcome Center, at Washington Avenue and 10th Street
4. Vanover Park, at Water and Ford streets

From Vanover Park, the route heads west past Grant Terry and Gateway, through Tunnel 1, and on to the CCR Trailhead. Huntsman's Rancho is next. If you're riding from north of downtown, the city has finished new separated bike lanes on Ford and Jackson streets between 14th and 24th. It scheduled their ribbon-cutting for Oct. 20 at 1600 Jackson St., according to GoldenToday. Coming from the east side, the Clear Creek Trail also links to the new paved route through Applewood's golf course.

What the Long Wait Is For

The canyon trail is one piece of a much longer plan. When it's done, the Clear Creek Trail will cover 65 miles, four counties and more than 5,000 feet of elevation gain. It will run from the South Platte River in Denver to the headwaters of Clear Creek on Loveland Pass, Grossman said, as reported by the Golden Transcript. The newest names in the canyon come from its history. The CCR segment is named for the narrow-gauge Colorado Central Railroad, which ran up the canyon from 1872 to 1941 to serve the mines in Central City and Black Hawk. US 6 was later built on the old rail grade and opened in 1952.

Jeffco is designing everything in the park to last 100 years. In the Transcript's account, Grossman said he isn't sure yet how the whole trail will be maintained across jurisdictions. He suggested a single nonprofit might be the best approach. He also described what he hopes the trail becomes. He pictured Golden kids biking up the canyon to fish, climb or hike together, and calling it "just a normal Saturday." He said that's what voters were after in 1972 when they approved the half-cent sales tax that funds Jeffco Parks & Open Space.

Starting Nov. 6, that Saturday ride goes 4.75 miles up the canyon from Gateway, and it's likely to stay that length for years. More on what's happening around town is in our Golden neighborhood guide and our look at Golden's fall calendar.

I live in Golden, and the canyon trail is part of my regular riding. If you're comparing homes by how easily you can get to Vanover Park or the Gateway Trailhead, I'm happy to talk through which streets make that trip easy. Reach out to The Source at SERHANT. whenever you're ready.