Heil Valley Ranch

So Monday afternoon was my first riding experience in Boulder. I had already bought a mountain biking book with close to 50 trails in the Boulder/Denver area and decided on a trail just outside of Boulder off of U.S. 36 West. The trail was called the Heil Valley Ranch trail. According to the book it was a moderate trail with 1,000 feet of elevation change. You start at the parking lot around 5,800 feet above sea level and top off at around mile four at 6,800 feet.

It's a very rocky trail. Probably the rockiest trail I've ridden on which lead me to believe that all trails out here would be like that but after talking with some other riders they told me otherwise and that Heil Valley Ranch trail is probably the rockiest. Riding up such a trail was a real pain in the thighs/legs. I could never get a nice rhythm while climbing which significantly slowed down my progress and extended the ride by quite a bit.

I'm not going to lie, I was out of breath probably 2 miles into the trail. It was probably a combination of the facts that I'm out of shape, I'm also out of riding shape, and the thin air certainly didn't help either. No matter what the combination of it was, I was freaking exhausted, but I pushed through the next ~2 miles to get to the top and boy was it worth it.

Toward the peak of the trail was an outlook that was simply gorgeous. I came around the corner and there is an opening in the treeline that allows you to look thousands of feet down the mountain as well as out into the distance of Lyons and to the north. There is a bench where you can sit and take it all in. It was really cool.

After the outlook I thought it would be downhill from there as you finish off the Ponderosa Loop (the short loop off of Wapiti Trail [main trail] that takes you to the outlook) and get ready to hop back on the Wapiti Trail. Nope, there is one more short stretch of rocky uphill and then you start to coast downhill back to the Wapiti/Ponderosa intersection. This was the best part.

As slow as it took me to climb the rocky section you can imagine how fast I went through the same section going downhill. This section of the trail was the best part of the whole thing and all the climbing I did was totally worth hauling it downhill weaving inbetween rocks and tree roots. That was so much fun. Overall I thought the trail was pretty good but I have no other Colorado riding experience to compare it to. Therefore, we will wait and see how it stacks up to others as I ride more and more trails. Feel free to make any suggestions.