Thursday, November 4, 2010

Apex Open Space - Here & There

A post-early morning flight run in a local gem of an open space park. Explored some of the new trails built there this summer.


Time:  1:27
Distance: 9 miles
Effort: Easy
Body: Fair
Weather: Sunny and warming

Got up at 3:30 a.m. in Washington, D.C. to catch a 6 a.m. flight home from Dulles. Got a solid couple hours of sleep on the plane. When I landed in Colorado at about 8:30 a.m., the sun was out and things were warming up nicely.

Since it was so early and I had my running gear packed in my suitcase, everything lined up nicely for a quick morning run. En route home, I stopped off at Apex Open Space, which is located just above Heritage Square in Golden. I head heard from Todd G. that the county put in some new trails at the park this summer, so I was eager to see what was new.

The first thing I noticed at the park was all the new signs put up to instruct bikers about new rules governing which direction on which days they could ride certain trails. There have been some significant hiker/biker conflicts at this small, close-in park. The directional days and new trails are the county's solution to the identified problems.

The first new trail, is the .7-mile Argos Trail, which switchbacks up the east-side face park's foothills mountains.  The trail is well built...I'd say over-built. It's a good 3-4 feet wide. This seems to be JeffCo's modus operandi these days...widening trails, removing rocks, etc...  I'm sure the trails will feel more narrow once the vegetation has regrown and preferred lines get worn into the wide tread. Will be interesting to watch how the trail matures. Still, my critiques aside, Open Space should be thanked and commended for investing in new trails, particularly in these challenging budget times!

From the top of the new Argos Trail, I cruised along Pick-n-Sledge and made a small loop out of Grubstake and Bonanza before dropping down Sluicebox to the Apex Trail. From this junction, I headed up Apex to its upper reaches and then ran down Enchanted Forest back to Apex (the upper part of Apex also has been re-routed), which I followed back to my truck.

Good stuff.

1 comment:

  1. The upper parts of that park are really nice. Elk seem to love it in the fall too, I used to see and hear them a lot.

    Even though Apex is right near me, I haven't been there in a while, probably for the reasons that prompted the trail use changes. I'll have to check it out again.

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