Clear Creek Trail

click through for to see traildenver's maps
I got a chance to go for a long ride this weekend, which included the leg of Clear Creek Trail between the South Platte River and Ralston Creek Trails.

There are three confluences along this section of trail. From northeast to southwest—

1. Clear Creek and South Platte River


2. Clear Creek and Little Dry Creek


3. Clear Creek and Ralston Creek

I am going to address these confluences in order, not geographic order, but in order of Nicety and Usefulness.

1. Ralston Creek Trail

This is the most intuitively navigable confluence of trails I've seen in Denver. I've taken the wrong turn at, or have at least hesitated at nearly all of them except this one. The first time I tried to take the South Platte River to work, I accidentally took Cherry Creek Trail at the confluence. Which is totally my fault because I am easily disoriented. I don't get that way here though. It's idiot proof.

Trail marker and Helpful Graffiti

I'm a fan of helpful graffiti. Especially in situations like this when you're out on the trail and don't necessarily have access to landmarks and cross-streets for reference.

This three way intersection is labeled "Arvada" for Ralston Creek Trail, "Denver" for eastbound Clear Creek, and "Golden" for westbound Clear Creek. Straightforward enough.



And the Ralston bridge is just pretty.

2. South Platte River

An A-OK juncture. Platte runs north/south, and Clear Creek runs east/west.

Eastbound on Clear Creek, there's a natural flow in the trail that usually suckers me into continuing north for a beat before I realize it, and that I wanted to take that wooden bridge back there on the right in order to continue on to Denver. So I have to stop and turn around.

It's a nice enough little rest stop, complete with benches and a small bathroom. I usually stop to stretch my legs.

There is a big trails map posted, but no markers by the intersections so you'll have to keep your direction clear in your head. There is a trail that I think just loops around the little confluence park, but I haven't ventured around it.

3. Little Dry Creek

Okay. This is my Bermuda Triangle. I have ridden past this lake half a dozen times and I continue to get completely disoriented every time I do. My motivation for making this post is the hope that if I write this down I will be able to proceed with confidence next time.

It's not the trails intersection so much as it is the lake just before it. Clear Creek seems to dead end at this lake, for when you come around to the other side of it, there's a hard left at the spill-over, and a sign informs you that you are getting on Little Dry Creek Trail.

Which always throws me because I always want to continue on Clear Creek. I don't want to go on Little Dry Creek. So I backtrack thinking I must have absentmindedly missed a fork. And when I don't see one, I waste a few more minutes looking at the trails map posted near the lake's street entrance, which is too large to offer any real detail and which has no "You Are Here" and which is just not helpful. So then I might surface to the street so I can see what my nearest cross streets are, thinking that the map might then be more useful.

Eventually, in desperation I just take the damn Little Dry Creek Trail. Which, ironically has been flooded every time I've ridden it.

And then a couple beats up the trail, I come to an intersection well marked with Helpful Graffiti. "Arvada" for westbound Clear Creek, "Westminster" for northbound Little Dry Creek, and "Denver" for eastbound Clear Creek.

So the point that I need to remember is that the "Little Dry Creek" marker at the lake is premature, or at least it does not signify the termination of Clear Creek. The trail fork lies past this misleading marker.

D2: From Lakeside Amusement to Wall Mart

Route summary!



D2. The northernmost E/W route on the grid. It stretches from the Denver/Jefferson county at 43rd and Sheridan, by Lakeside Amusement Park and Berkeley Lake, across town to Wall Mart, just this side of Stapleton. And between the two endpoints is a nice little ride!

• 0.00 miles - West 43rd Avenue and Sheridan Boulevard. This initial stretch of road is pleasant because you start out right on Berkeley Park. I loved going to this park when I lived near here. It has a rec center with a pool, a fenced in dog park, a public library, a big lake with fishing and a walking trail around it. It was tempting to stop the ride before it even began and loiter about, enjoying the morning here.


• 0.07 miles - Double sharrows!


• 0.52 miles - DOUBLE EFFING SHARROWS. (At Tennyson St.) There are three generations of sharrows painted on this street. The most recent ones look bold and bright. The next oldest are clearly visible, and the oldest ones are very faded. But you can see nearly all of them clearly enough. There's one every couple of feet! It's impossible for a motorist on this street not to know that there may be bicycles about.





• 1.14 miles - Rocky Mountain Lake Park. Another park. With another lake. But this one has a big damn frog.
  
  And how does this rinky-dink little park win the thousand dollar name of "Rocky Mountain Park?" Is it the big damn frog? Must be.


• 2.60 miles - Turn right onto Navajo Street. The turn is labeled. If you're paying attention, you can't miss it.


• 2.92 miles - Turn left at West 43rd Avenue. This turn is not labeled. If you don't know to turn here, you'll miss out on the best part of ride, coming up ahead.


• 3.24 miles - 43rd Avenue dead ends at Inca Street. At the 43rd Ave Foot Bridge!
  
  I wasn't positive this thing existed. I decided to do this ride in the first place because somebody arrived at this website by searching for "denver d-2 bicycle 43rd bridge." I felt bad for whoever that was because I, until now, I didn't have a lick of information about it.
  
  So when you turn on to it, 43rd dead ends after only a few blocks at Inca Street. Beyond Inca are the train tracks. Before the tracks is a several stories tall foot bridge. I didn't think it was open at first because of the abandoned fire tower look it has, but when I went in for a closer look, I discovered that it's a solid, concrete over pass. There's a small stairwell in the middle that you have to carry your bike up (PORTAGE!) and then you have to carry it back down the other side again, obviously. And then there's a small patch of dirt between you and where 43rd continues.
  
  Portaged my bike and got some mud on my tires. Awesome.



• 3.45 miles - Left on Fox Street.


• 3.53 miles - Turn right onto West 44th Avenue, which will carry you right over I-25, and then curve north to parallel the freeway.


• 3.99 miles - Turn right onto East 45th Avenue. And welcome to Globeville! This is a neat little neighborhood. Globeville proper spreads out farther than this, but this is a cute little 3x8 blocks neighborhood confined by I-25 the to west, I-70 to the north, and the Platte River to the south and east. Watch out for the White Owl on your left. Apparently a groovy little dive bar. I'll have to go back for a few brewskies some time.



• 4.46 miles - Across Washington Street is BikeDonalds, which sits right on the South Platte trail, has ample bike parking and bicycle themed art on the walls inside. Either stop for a milkshake, or continue through the parking lot, onto the trail, and north one exit.


• 4.72 miles - Go under E 47th Ave (it's labeled), keep going for a heartbeat and then turn around and proceed up the ramp. Turn left onto 47th and continue towards the Colosseum/National Western Complex. 47th Street will go underneath I-70 and then dead-end at a stop sign. Turn left. Hard left. Onto Humboldt.


• 5.32 miles - Turn right onto East 47th Avenue.


• 5.92 miles - Here's a funky little place where 47th starts to curve northwards, and then crosses York and you have to turn hard right, almost doubling back the way you came, and then continue across to remain on 47th. It's not tricky. It'll make sense when you see it. It's not a big deal.



• 6.24 miles - Right onto Clayton


• 6.54 miles - Past Dunham Park and then left onto 44th.



• 6.77 miles - Right onto Steele. The first block or two of this stretch of Steele is pretty unwelcoming, but it gets friendlier.
  
  This is the beginning of an annoying two mile detour that is necessary to get around the damn puppy chow plant.


• 6.90 miles - Between 43rd and 42nd, there are some train tracks that proceed east from here to Smith Road, which is where we ultimately want to go. I didn't investigate at the time, but if there is some cleared brush along the tracks that might support a mountain, or otherwise-off-roadable, bike then this could cut almost two miles off the route, as well as offer a brief, natural, rails-to-trails style respite from the otherwise very urban route.
  
  Warrants further attention.


• 7.59 miles - Right onto E 35th Ave/Bruce Randolph. Down shift before turning. There's a steep little climb for one block. Continue past the City of Nairobi Park.


• 7.97 miles - Left onto Jackson.


• 8.72 miles - Jackson veers right and becomes Smith Road. Continue along Smith. Smith runs right next to the rail road tracks. I had the misfortune of riding down Smith once while a train was passing. The noise from the train was so loud that I couldn't hear anything, so I never knew a car was behind me until I could see it at my side as it passed me. Scary!
  
  Watch out for where the tracks cross the road here. They'll rattle your bones a little.


• 10.71 miles - Just west of Quebec is the "Last Bus Stop In Town." It's a filthy little bus stop, the closest one to the mega big-box strip mall across the street. If you pass by here at the right time of day, you'll see six foot tall piles of Wall Mart and Home Depot shopping carts. It's the only solution for people who are dependent on the bus for transportation and who also need to do low-price/high-volume shopping.
  
  There's definitely an opportunity here for something. Be it some kind of a cart return service, or a shuttle service to and from the bus stop. Or maybe just a nicer bus stop. One that's not a bench surrounded by mud and litter. A canopy, some pavement, a trash can, and a cart return would do wonders, really.


• 12.00 miles - Wall Mart. Effectively the end of the route.



• 12.14 miles - End. The actual end of the route. Between Wall Mart and here, there are lots of prairie dogs to bark at you.
  
  The speed with which industrial/residential land turns into natural/feral land makes me realize and appreciate how much we're imposing our modern, urban lives upon the original, kinder and gentler, more natural inhabitants of the area. Those prairie dogs don't know what Wall Mart is, but they don't know what bikes are either.

To wrap up loose ends, I thought I'd return home at this point by jumping on the Sand Creek trail, which appeared to intersect Smith Road here. But I was unable to find it!

I think. Maybe I found it. But Smith Road was blocked off due to some kind of construction related in no doubt to the expansion of the nearby subdivision. So I veered into, and got lost in, the underbelly of Stapleton. I floundered around for quite a while until I stumbled upon Westerly Creek, which I was able to follow down to Montview and, ultimately, home.

I find it easy to protest Stapleton's cookie-cutter, "little boxes" style of development. But the streets were so nice. Wide, with sidewalks and bike lanes. And walking/biking trails all over the place.

They're doing some things right.

Route profile: 16th Street/Avenue

16th Street Mall and 16th Avenue are collectively known as the Teenybopper Mallrat Route.



One of Denver's stranger bike routes, notable for running along the spine of the city, but at the same time not really taking you anywhere.

Access to the mall is limited to one day out of the week; and 16th Avenue has a bike lane but is not part of the Grid, and eventually comes to an abrupt stop after a couple blocks.

The route starts at one end of the city at the northwest end of the 16th Street Mall, either at Union Station or at National Velvet.



Now, unless it's Sunday, you cannot ride on the 16th Street Mall. This is one of bikedenver.org's Big Four rules, right up there with No Riding On The Sidewalk. Bike here 85.7% of the time, and you'll get a ticket.

On Sunday though, you can cruise right down the middle of the road. It's an interesting 1.5 mile ride that's not without its own unique joys and frustrations.

At the southeast end of the mall, your route crosses Broadway and becomes E 16th Avenue.

16th Avenue is not listed on the City of Denver bike map as a "grid" route, or even as a local bike route, but simply as a "road with a bike lane."

So even the city recognizes that it's kind of special.

Personally, I have a tendency to forget about 16th Ave until I cross it coming from the north or the south, and I see a bike lane, and I think to myself, "Oh! An E/W bike lane! I need to go east … might as well use this convenient bit of infrastructure!"

So I turn onto 16th and cruise along, slowly progressing through the the stop signs that litter the route, until suddenly it dead ends at East High School.



Near the school, there is suddenly eleven or eight fleets worth of cars parked on the street, and there are always—regardless of the time day, morning or afternoon—handfuls of kids milling about outside.

Enough to make you want to point out to them that there's no such thing as education by proxy. Being at the school doesn't count. You gotta, you know, go inside and learn stuff.

Anyway, so suddenly you dead-end at the high school. You options for continuing are, to the south, Colfax Ave; and to the north, 17th Ave.

Neither of these streets are safe to bike on.

That leaves you the option of, to the north, continuing past 17th into and through City Park or, to the south, riding on the sidewalk on Colfax for one block before cutting back up to a safe side street.

Of these options, one is illegal (sidewalk-ridin') and one is inconvenient (the winding route through City Park takes you out of your way.)

---

So this route is interesting. It takes you from East High School to the far end of 16th Street Mall, and not really anywhere else.

But in doing so, you get really close to the real heart of the city.

Just off this route is City Park, Civic Center Park, the Central Library. Cheeseman Park is a short ride to the south. It runs parallel to all the wondrous crap on Colfax and it runs right through all the wondrous crap on the 16th Street Mall, including Skyline park. At the northwest end, you can get on the S. Platte River trail just north of the confluence with the Cherry Creek trail.

So from a wider perspective, I suppose it's quite a well connected hub.

But since all it literally does is connect a high school to a strip mall, I shall henceforth call this the Teenybopper Mallrat Route.

ghosts in the maps

So here's part of a map of the South Platte River trail, obviously right by the Riverside Cemetery.



Every time I look at that funny little land formation right by the cemetery, I can't help but see a gaping skull head. I chose to see it in my mind as though he's an Elvis rocker skull head, crooning for the deadies.



Thankyaverymuch.

Sloan's Lake to Chatfield Lake

Big ride today! Map.

My daily commute takes me from Sloans Lake to near Stapleton, about 8.5 miles, and that is the distance I'm used to, and really the farthest I've ever gone at once.

Until today.

I had been thinking about a ride down to Chatfield State Park for a while now, and decided that today would be the day. It was about 36 miles round-trip.

I'll go ahead and say for the record here and now, that electing to go for a ride over four times longer than what had previously been your longest ride, is not a super great idea.  I'm kinda hurting. I mean, the ride whupped my butt.

I had a lot of fun, and I'd do it again. I'm just saying that maybe I should have done a 15 miler between the 8.5 and the 36. I've been pretty worthless all afternoon. 

So here are a few comments and observations from the ride:

• Yet another reason that I will continue to wear my helmet, even on the comparatively "safe" bike path: a grasshopper, mid-flight, crashed into my face and got stuck in my beard. The bug and I both freaked out so hard. Went into the Death Wobbles and nearly dumped over before recovering.

• Discovered Hudson Gardens' (http:www.hudsongardens.org) cafe facing the bike path. It was delightful! A great little stop for refreshments, water, or bathrooms. There were a lot of cyclists there, enjoying the shade and each other's company.

• By the time I got back home, it was hot and I was overheated. Stopped at Confluence Park behind REI and dove into the river to cool off. It was here that I saw an older man on the REI side of the river drop his hybrid-style looking bicycle into the river. I stood and watched for a few minutes as he sat on the concrete ledge and kicked his feet as his bike sat in the drink with the water covering the hubs of his wheels.  He then jumped in himself and attempted for forge the river, pushing his bike along the river bed. When he got to the point where the water was so deep that just his handlebars and seat were showing, and the current starting to push him around a little bit, he started shouting and gesturing wildly to no one in particular, turned around, and headed back to his "shore," where he shoved the bike up and out of the river, and then clambered after it. Wow.

And I guess that's all. I haven't done much but sit on the couch and rehydrate since getting home, but what a fun ride.