Boulder to Nederland Trail Run

Running from Boulder to Nederland on trails is something we do with our Boulder Trail Runner friends once or twice a year. This year we tried a new route that avoided most of the roads but did require a little bushwhacking. The map below shows the route. We left from Starbucks in downtown Boulder and ended at Crosscut Pizza in Nederland. It ended up being about 26 miles with 7,000 feet of elevation gain.

We left Boulder at 7AM as the sun was rising and headed to Chautauqua.

We followed the Amphitheater and Saddle Rock trails to the top of Green Mountain.

We avoided most of the normal Flagstaff road section by bushwacking to a power-line cut.

We hiked along the power lines until we reached the pipeline trail. The pipeline trail follows the buried water pipeline from Barker Reservoir to Kossler Lake. Pipeline is a nice trail that goes most of the way to Nederland. Vanessa and Larry joined us for this section.

A rocky section of the pipeline trail.

We left the pipeline trail and went south to climb Twin Sisters peak (this is a different Twin Sisters than the one near Rocky Mountain National Park). You can see Jed and Laura scrambling to the top of Twin Sisters.

The views from Twin Sisters are spectacular. This is a panorama of the continental divide with Longs Peak toward the right.

The gang on top of Twin Sisters. Staci, Rich, Laura (with mask), Jed and Mack.

A panorama of the Boulder mountains. Sanitas (left) Green Mountain, Bear Peak and South Boulder Peak.

We continued from Twin Sisters to Forsythe Canyon where it was shady and cold.

Staci looking at the icy creek in Forsythe Canyon.

From Forsythe Canyon we continued to Winegar Ridge.

After Winegar Ridge we connected to the Dot Trails. These trails are named for the color of the dot (Red, Blue, Yellow) marking them, and were originally developed many years ago by the Boy Scouts.

We arrived in Nederland a 5PM and got to see the moon rising over Barker Reservoir. We headed to Crosscut Pizza for a fun dinner.