Aspen Colorado hiking trails
These Aspen Colorado hiking trails feature mountain vistas, aspen trees, lakes, creeks, and anything else I think you might like. And if I find any waterfalls, I'll tell you about those too. But so far, I haven't seen or heard about any waterfalls on any Aspen hiking trails other than the cascading waterfall at the Maroon Bells. And speaking of the Maroon Bells, I think that's the first best place to explore a few Aspen Colorado hiking trails. So if you'd like to see the Maroon Bells for yourself, do visit my Maroon Bells page. You'll see some of the easier hikes that start there along with directions, and other good information. If you'd like to do an Aspen hiking trail that features lots of aspen trees, visits two lakes, and has wonderful views of Mt. Sopris, you should do the hike to Thomas Lakes. It's the second hike on my Colorado Fall hikes page. Although you can do this hike any time during the hiking season, we chose to do it in the fall because of all those aspen trees. The following Aspen Colorado hiking trail involves crossing a creek, (no bridge), to reach the trailhead. So you should probably have a high clearance vehicle if you want to do this hike. We did this hike in late August and the water wasn't deep; just deep enough to need a higher clearance vehicle.
Directions to Avalanche Creek trailhead: from Hwy. 82 in Carbondale, turn south onto Hwy. 133. Drive about 12.7 miles then turn left onto Road 310. (You'll see the sign there for Avalanche Creek.) Cross the bridge over the Crystal River and follow the dirt road for about 2.7 miles to the Avalanche Campground. Drive through the campground to the far end of it where you'll see the parking lot, and this is also where the trail starts. This Aspen Colorado hiking trail starts out by following an easy path along Avalanche Creek. You'll see aspen trees in various places along the trail and in some places, you can also see them off to your right, on the neighboring mountainside. Most of this trail is thickly forested, so it's a good hike to do on a warm day. Maybe around half way into the hike, you'll come to a creek crossing that's a little tricky. There are rocks and logs across the creek but they're not as sturdy as they could be. If you have hiking sticks, they are very useful for getting across this creek. On the other side, the trail continues up at a gentle pace. After a little while, the trail gets steeper and pretty much stays that way for most of the rest of the hike. Towards the last part of this Aspen Colorado hiking trail, you come to a large aspen forest with tall aspen trees. Shortly after this, you come to a trail intersection. Continue straight on the Avalanche Creek trail. Soon you'll be heading downhill through some switchbacks. In about two minutes, you'll reach the bridge which is the turnaround point for this hike. Enjoy :-). I'm planning on doing more Aspen Colorado hiking trails this summer, (2010), so when I do, I'll be adding them here. And if
you know any Aspen hiking trails that you think should be on this page, do let me know about them so I can check them out.
Have fun out there on the hiking trail!
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Avalanche Creek Trail
