Beaver Creek Trail

This trail offers a pleasant and scenic hike or bike ride, only a few minutes from Glenwood Springs. The trail follows Beaver Creek out of 4-mile Park, climbs a ridge and drops into the Yank Creek drainage. Using the gas pipeline, this can be made into a loop trail for bicycles. It is recommended that you do the route using the pipeline to access Yank Creek. Due to some very steep grades, it would be very difficult to attempt to climb from Yank Creek up the pipeline to road #300. It is best to park your vehicle at the 4-mile trailhead, ride the road to the pipeline, take the pipeline to Yank Creek and return to 4-mile via the Beaver Creek trail.

The Beaver Creek Trailhead is one of the closest Forest Service recreation sites to the City of Rifle. The trailhead provides access to the Beaver Creek Trail and (with a short hike or ride) the Battlement Trail . From the trailhead parking area, visitors can cross the creek and follow the Beaver Creek Trail for 1.2 miles to the top of the ridge. From here, visitors can descend into the West Mamm drainage or stay on top of the ridge and explore the Battlement Mesa.

Please note: As of June 2019, there is a construction project in the area. The Beaver Creek Trailhead and the upper end of Forest Road 824 are closed while the project is underway. In the interim, a temporary lower trailhead and temporary 0.75-mile access trail are open to the public. Please park in the pullout on the left side of the road just before the locked gate. The upper end of the road and the newly-reconstructed trailhead are due to open in late 2019.

The Beaver Lake Trail begins at the base of the Beaver Creek Ski Area and continues past Beaver Lake at 3.3 miles, ending at Turquoise Lakes: This trail follows Beaver Creek as you hike through aspens and thimbleberry on an old wagon trail then onto singletrack up through coniferous forest to the Holy Cross Wilderness boundary at mile 3. From here you are only 0.3 miles from Beaver Lake. For most, this is the final destination, but the trail does continue an additional 4 miles to Lower and Upper Turquoise Lakes located at the foot of Grouse Mountain.

This 2.2 mile trail connects Eagle Drive and the Beaver Creek Ski Resort. Hikers and snowshoers generally hike up from Eagle Drive and mountain bikers generally ride from Beaver Creek down to Eagle Drive.

From the trailhead at Eagle Drive, the trail is very flat through mixed aspen and conifer forest for the first 0.75 miles until a fork. The trail right leads down onto the golf course. Turn left here and remember this intersection for your return trip so you don’t end up down on the golf course. The trail now climbs along the creek through forest toward Beaver Creek Ski Resort.

The Turquoise Lake / Beaver Lake Trail begins at the Beaver Creek Ski Area and ends at Upper Turquoise Lake. See Beaver Lake Trail #2109.

The West Grouse Creek trail begins at Us Hwy 24 near Minturn and ends at Turquoise Lakes: This trail is an old Forest road through pastureland for approximately 1/4 mile before entering dense stands of conifers and climbing steadily past a couple small lakes, over the north ridge of Grouse Mountain, and descending to Turquoise Lakes and the headwaters of Beaver Creek.