Clear Creek Trail

We've taken a couple of long bike rides in the past week. There's a great trail near my parents' house called the Clear Creek Trail. Most of it is part of the Colorado Open Space project. And it links up cities and parks and rec centers … and runs all along Clear Creek, which is very very pretty.

Last week we went into Wheat Ridge on it and then past that into Arvada and part of Denver proper. Along that was mainly parks and stuff and it was really interesting. But today we went the opposite way, into Golden. The Golden part of the trail runs by Coors Brewing Company and then into the little town of Golden itself, which was the territorial capital of CO and has a cool and interesting history all its own. Anyhow, they've done some really great improvements along the trail with proceeds from the state lottery. The trails are paved and about 10 feet wide, with red stone retaining walls all along, and nice bridges. In Golden itself, they've worked Clear Creek into a white-water park complete with landings and man-made white water bits for canoers and rafters and kayakers. They also have great spots for you to stop and have a wade in the creek (we did!) and there was also a neat spiral slide coming from above where the trail runs under a street and onto a prettily-patterned foam landing spot (I heckled Matt into trying it out). Gilmore Girls premieres!! Watch it. No seriously. I'm not gonna stop bugging you about this!