| Name: | Matthews-Winters Park and Green Mountain | 
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| Description: | These two parks are adjacent, separated by Co Hwy 26, and are located just south of Golden. As such, they provided an opportunity to ride them both on a warm Christmas Day. I parked at the Matthews-Winters trailhead and rode the Red Rocks trail first. Screwed around the Red Rocks Park and then headed up southern part of Dakota Ridge. At the pass rode down the road east to southern entrance to Green Mountain Park. The trails here reminded me a lot of SLC's Shoreline, mellow grades of the main trails combined with steep and rocky parts of unofficial trails. I feel like I rode most of the trails in the area, the rest that I could think of are marked in blue on the map. Also, in green is the northen part of C-470 paved bike path that parallels the 470 freeway. The last part of the ride was the Dakota Ridge trail, also in M-W park. This trail is pretty nasty, lot of sections of steep rocky path in a slickrock. It was probably a better workout in the south-north direction, while the opposite would favor more technical downhill rider. Since I was getting pretty tired, and had my hardtail with not too great fork, I was glad that I did it the harder way - most of the technical sections were climbs. Overall, great Christmas Day. The trails are average, but the timing was critical. | |
| URL: | TopoFusion Home Page | |
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| Total Distance: | 28.58 miles (46.00 km) |
| Total Trip Time: | 4:53:50 (4:15:27 moving time) |
| Total Climbing: | 5094 feet (1553 m) |
| Total Descending: | 5073 feet (1546 m) |
| Average Speed: | 6.71 mph (10.80 kph) |
