Glenwood Canyon Bike Path Still Partially Closed

Colorado, cycling, Glenwood Springs | UltraRob | Friday, July 22nd, 2011 at 12:33 pm

Courtesy CDOT

The Colorado River through Glenwood Canyon has been unusually high this year from well above average snowpack this winter in the surrounding mountains. It’s common in late May and early June for parts of the bike path through Glenwood Canyon to be closed for a few days. This year CDOT closed it on May 9th and it’s been closed since then.

The middle of last week CDOT did open about 5 miles from Glenwood Springs to Grizzley Creek rest area. The short section of bike path used to access the Hanging Lake Trail is also open. I drove I-70 last week and could see water over the bike path in several places. The water wasn’t as high over the bike path as the CDOT photo to the left but there was still plenty of water covering the bike path in spots.

I talked to a Forest Service Ranger at the Grizzley Creek rest area and he said that CDOT is cleaning the bike path where they can so they can open more of it when the water drops. There are spots though where the trail has been washed away or undercut. The worst seems to be between the Shoshone rapids and the Hanging Lake rest area. Once the water has dropped enough they’ll have to figure out what’s needed to fix the path.

From what I could see, the path from the Hanging Lake to the trailhead at the east end of the canyon isn’t damaged but there’s mud, branches and other junk on it. It was already pretty much cleaned and dry from Hanging Lake to the Blair Ranch rest area. Just east of Blair Ranch there was still water over the path but it was mostly just standing muddy water instead of swift water. There were similar water over the path spots nearly all the way to the east end of the canyon.