Steamboat Springs Day 2 - Wyoming Trail

This morning (Thursday) we got up when we felt like it (ahh), had breakfast at the hotel then loaded up the bikes and headed out for the Wyoming Trail (#1101).

We took highway 40 up into the mountains to Dumont Lake. The trail head is past the campground, turn left at the monument. We started out on a service road to the left then veered right at the carsonite sign that said TRAIL and followed an old canal. At the old diversion dam the trail crossed the stream and climbed north.

Looking back at Dumont Lake.


The trail went through meadows, snaked through forest and crossed a few streams. This is high country (10,000 feet) and it reminded me of the Uintas.



After climbing up to Base Camp trail head we descended down a section of trail sprinkled with technical rock gardens. At the bottom we crossed another stream and headed up to lovely Fishhook Lake.



We skipped the out-n-back to Lost Lake and continued on. Very nice riding, check out this bend in the trail.



We stopped at scenic Lake Elmo and ate lunch.



The trail was pretty easy to follow, but every now and then I'd break out the map to see where we were. (The Sky Terrain map of Mount Zirkel was excellent. You can borrow mine if you're heading to Steamboat Springs.)



At "the four way" we continued on the Wyoming Trail. This section is open to motorcycles and ATVs, and while still nice, it wasn't single-track. We planned to ride out to Buffalo Pass and back, but when we arrived at Grizzly Lake we decided to turn around.



The ride back was fun. I'm pretty sure we had slowly been gaining altitude on the way out as it sure felt like the downhills were longer and the uphills shorter going back. Climbing back up to Base Camp was the only steep climb and it wasn't too long.



The Wyoming Trail was a fantastic ride. For a high mountain trail it's flat, but out-and-back we did around 3000 feet of climbing over 23 miles. With all the trees we rode over a lot of roots and it is rocky in spots, but overall it's a good mix of buff and technical - highly recommended.