'A new day in Idaho Springs': Virginia Canyon mountain bike trails open in Colorado

Highly anticipated mountain bike trails have opened in Colorado’s central Rockies.

Announced Thursday, Drop Shaft and Hopper trails are the first bike trails to debut as part of a long-dreamed, broader network called Trek Trails at Virginia Canyon Mountain Park.

The system was dreamed long before Gary Moore stepped into Colorado Mountain Bike Association leadership about eight years ago. The nonprofit has spearheaded the project focused on 400 acres of steep, rugged, city of Idaho Springs-owned terrain above the Argo Mill and Tunnel, the historic tourist attraction seen from Interstate 70.

“It’s super gratifying,” Moore said of Virginia Canyon’s first mountain bike trails. “We’re just super stoked to be at this point to see the gondola under construction, the trails starting to open. ... It’s gonna be a new day in Idaho Springs.”

That’s indeed how some business owners and officials around town have talked about the under-construction gondola and larger vision surrounding the Argo , that red facility that helped power the gold rush here.

“This is probably the biggest thing to happen to the city of Idaho Springs since the gold rush,” Mayor Chuck Harmon previously told The Gazette . “This is going to be quite the economic shot in the arm.”

Alongside international investors, local Argo ownership this summer broke ground on the gondola. In the next year or two, riders will take a mile-long trip up the mountainside to Miners Point, a scenic destination above 8,800 feet to include food, drink and live entertainment.

And trails.

“The perfect marriage of outdoor recreation and heritage tourism,” said Mary Jane Loevlie, the Argo’s owner who years ago had the idea for the gondola. The idea revived dormant talks of Virginia Canyon trails.

The gondola promises to be the popular way to access the world-class network Colorado Mountain Bike Association has in mind, sprawling 28 miles. The current 12 miles — many of them also open to hikers — run the gamut of flowy green and blue, to fast and rocky, double black diamond with elevated wood features, Moore said.

“Akin to something you see at Trestle and Keystone,” he said, referring to vaunted, lift-served playgrounds at Winter Park and Keystone resorts.

Virginia Canyon’s first riders will get a taste with Drop Shaft and Hopper trails.

Just above the Argo, the previously built Rosa Gulch Trail for hikers and uphill bikes runs about 4 miles and 1,300 feet up toward the future site of Miners Point, to the launch point of Drop Shaft for downhill bikes.

Drop Shaft plunges more than 2 ½ miles back toward the Argo, culminating in what Moore described as a wooden “corkscrew that makes you do a loop-de-loop.”

Hopper Trail is a shorter, tamer option. It’s accessed from what a map marks as “The Hub” — trails around the upper part of the current system. (Trail map and more information at comba.org/virginiacanyonmountainpark )

While riders get acquainted on the mountain, they’ll also get acquainted with what Moore described as a different kind of parking arrangement down in Idaho Springs.

“There’s not going to be a trailhead. The whole city is the trailhead,” he said. “The good news is the Clear Creek Greenway runs through; pretty much anywhere you park in town, you’re only a few steps from the greenway, and that will take you to the start of the trails.”

With the gondola and the trails expecting to draw more than 500,000 people a year, parking has been a concern around town. Idaho Springs has plans to build a parking garage off downtown, one idea from what Harmon called “an exhaustive traffic study” before the project’s approval.

Another concern: maintaining the trails that are unprecedented for the city. “Frankly, they’ll need constant grooming,” the mayor said.

He sounded confident in an arrangement with the gondola: For every ticket sold, 50 cents will go to maintenance.

Funding so far has come from Great Outdoors Colorado and Colorado Parks and Wildlife grants, along with other donations — all amounting to about $1.4 million for initial trail construction, Moore said. Construction has been courtesy of volunteer hands and professionals with FlowRide Concepts and McGill Trails.

To continue expanding the trail system, Colorado Mountain Bike Association will look to fundraising and a city vote in November on a land swap key to that expansion.

For Moore and his team, Virginia Canyon is about “changing the overall perception of Front Range riding,” he explained. His association in recent years led trail builds at Floyd Hill and Maryland Mountain in Black Hawk.

“When people talk about destination riding in Colorado, they talk about Crested Butte, Grand Junction, places that have been on bucket lists for a long time,” Moore said. “The game has changed. There’s reasons to think about planning a mountain biking weekend here west of Denver instead of west of the whole state.”