Whats this site is all about
Do you find that trails make you feel like an explorer? Do you find yourself wondering at what lies over the next ridge? Do you marvel at the diversity of views and feelings as you travel along a path less often traveled by the average person? Then this is the place for you. There is something special about trails, whether you are running, biking or hiking them. They seem to remove you from the everyday, civilized world and transport you to a world of wonder and awe.
I have designed this website to provide detailed information about the trails that I have explored around the Colorado Springs Area and sometimes a bit beyond. My goals is to make it easy for you to find the trail, know the distance, and have some idea as to how difficult the trail may be so help in deciding if it is a good trail for you.
On this website, I will try to bring together information about the trails and parks that can help you find this sense of "different" that I find in the trails of Colorado Springs. Every trail that I document here, I have traveled and I will try to capture the essence of that trail. I hope also to provide the detailed information to make it easy for you to find it and experience it yourself.
If you will join me in this experience, I would encourage you to go to my trail forum and register. Here we can share our experiences about our trails. Ask your fellow trail users to register and contribute also. I am hoping that the forum will serve as a place were everyone can discuss their experiences with the trails. Trail conditions are just one of the important topics of discussion. It will make it easier for other users to have a better experience and help to preserve the trails by warning when conditions are not good for trail access. If conditions are bad, it is not a pleasant experience. Also, some trails due to their composition should not be used when conditions are wet and muddy because this creates ruts and extra wear on the edges of the trail and leads to worse trail conditions over time. Your input as part of your experience when using the trails can go a long way to help our trails.
On the following pages, I have put links to the various trails that I have traveled and tried to document the details about each one. I have tried to present maps in a number of formats so that you can choose the format that makes sense for you. These formats range from topo to google earth and I hope one of the formats is right for you to be able to find and use the trail safely.
If you are not sure where the trails are or which trails are in an area you are interested in, follow
this link
to a general map of the area with marker flags showing the locations of trails that have been mapped here. You can
use the features of Google Maps to request directions from your location to the trail area.
The Trail maps were developed by using my Garmin GPS units to track my runs and hikes over various local courses. I then import them into SportsTracks software. SportsTracks and other software, along with some conversions done on the data are used to get it on the webpage. Over time, the presentation of this material and data will change as I find new tools, maps and other presentation software. The goal is to present the maps and trail information in the most efficent and useful way. To that end, if you have suggestions, please send them to me or comment in the forum.
Whats New
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2011 08 28
Still upgrading trail pages to newer format. Added a couple of new trails. I have been a bit busy but hope now to be able to start back on finishing the upgrades
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2010 12 25
Some minor reorganization of the webpage layouts. Started upgrading trail pages to the newer format which will present the map layout first and remove the sidebar from the pages for a cleaner display. Started adding the date the page was last updated to the footer section of the page. Removing the blog and forum links from all trail pages.
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2010 11 24
Added Blodgett Peak Trail. Some minor reorganization of the webpage layout for trails. All the newest webpages will start with the map, followed by stats, then have the written description. I intend on redoing the navaigation to move additional data and related links to their own webpages. I am also looking at other options for display of the photos.
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2010 11 14
Reorganized the webpages. This is the first part of the changes I want to incorporate. Take a look at the Seven Bridges page, it shows some of my new ideas for presenting individual trail pages. There is more to come in thie area. It is still incomplete but I am trying to use some of the new features of the latest version of Google Maps API in an effort to make the maps more dynamic.
What's in your browser
One thing I would like to comment on is "browsers". I have always been aware that different browsers can present webpages differently or not at all. I have designed these pages using standardized xhtml but some browsers especially IE prior to IE7 many not render some of the information correctly. For this I apologize but since I do not have all the different browsers possible, I test with the more current browsers from IE, Mozilla, and Google.