Buffalo Creek

Beautiful day on the Buffalo Creeks trails - December 4th sunny and low 60s. Trails were perfect! WOW!!!

Despite the warnings related to COVID, Buff Creek is open.

This app takes you away from the better trailhead starting point. Don't follow the directions through Little Scraggy. Go all the way to Buffalo Creek, CO (a few miles north of little scraggy) and start from the huge parking lot across from the forest ranger building. Great riding. The climbs are worth it when you get to come back down.

Nice Climb out from the Buffalo Creek trailhead. Not very technical. I only had to get off and walk twice. Exposed at the top because you are riding through the burn. Also, fairly remote. Bring some Mylar with you (like a space blanket and poncho) in case you get caught in some weather.

Note, this is a BIG climb. Expect to be peddling for an hour at least. The grades aren't hard, it's simply long.

Buffalo Creek "Mini Tour". Nice Kitty to the top (at the Colorado Trail) - Shingle Mill back to the Buffalo Creek trailhead.

Nice Kitty is a GREAT trail, up through the unburned forest, into the burn and up to meet the Colorado Trail at the top. Fairly easy climb (LONG) on 3 foot wide singletrack. Nice Meet the Colorado trail about 5 miles out. Nice downhill from there. The downhill is mostly sand trail, which keeps me slow. But, non-technical and very smooth. Nice views. About half of the trail is through the burn. You'll need some map reading, GPS, Trail Picking for this one. But, it's not hard. Just keep taking every right turn from the start of Nice Kitty (watch out for the sideouts to overlooks). All in all, a GREAT loop Took me two hours to ride, with a half hour of stops to figure out where I was.

I'm stingy with the 5 stars, but I'll call this 4 stars with commentary that its a solid 4.5. Really nice trail, mostly flow style particularly before and after the climb on the back side of Little Scraggy. What holds me back from 5 stars is the sandiness throughout and the tough, gnarly climb on a backside. I don't mind the elevation gain, but when its that tough I prefer not-so-gnarly rocks and obstacles. But its worth it even to hike-a-bike a few short sections, cause the payoff is oh so worth it. One of the best downhills I've done - good speed, flowy rhythm, and not just smooth berms (which I do appreciate downhill). Definitely agree CW is the way to go.

A gem in the wild. Crew at Golden Bike Shop recommended to us, so we drove out there. WELL WORTH the drive out. Fantastic loop!! Amazing rocks, views and trail! Highly recommended!

Just rode Baldy for the first time in well over a year. WOW, the trail is amazing. The BC volunteers have realigned the trail and done a fantastic job. They have bypassed the worst parts of the trail. The reroute is quite a bit longer, and has several supported turns and also some fun gnar added. You can tell that the reroute is not going to accumulate a bunch of deep scree either. Suddenly (for me), Baldy has become a worthy downhill and a 4 star trail.

Rode this trail this past week, starting (rather than ending) with the Sandy Wash section. The name is accurate. Lots of sand. The majority of the loop, actually, is incredibly sandy, making some of the inclines nearly impossible without a fat bike. While the incline up Sandy Wash was challenging (and hot! little to no shade at the top, as you are riding through a burned over portion of the forest), the downhill through the Baldy section is amazing--fast, flowy, and clean, with amazing views. A great ride overall, but I imagine that the trail earned its high rating prior to the amount of use it sees now, and prior to the whole trail essentially becoming loose sand and roots.

This trail and the surrounding trails are incredible. Little Scraggy has a variety of trail surfaces but is generally sandy compared to my normal Midwest trail rides. I agree that CW is the way to ride and although there is a pretty long, sustained climb just after the mid point, it is well worth the effort. Shortly after this climb is a terrific flowing, sandy downhill that left me whooping and slapping high-fives! We finished with a 6 mile downhill on "nice kitty" and were picked up at the bottom by shuttling friends! This was absolutely awesome! Highly recommended!

It is a two-way trail, but I would say that it is clearly best ridden CW -- ride the east side first around to the west side. If you really want to add to the ride, start at the main THD at the bottom of Buff Creek and ride up Nice Kitty first. This makes for a great loop with a big climb at first followed by some nice long descents (e.g. Shinglemill). I also like to add the Baldy climb and then come down Charlie's Cutoff and Sandy Wash. I also like to do an inner loop -- up Baldy, down Gashouse and back up Baldy -- then onto Charlie's and Sandy.

Little Scraggy Loop Is 12.5 miles not 5. The trail is a 7 mile climb that is varied, has a lot of rock features and optional lines, and never feels like it is climbing as much as it does. You are then rewarded with about 3 miles of sublime, purpose built, flowy downhill. It's awesome

Rode the entire trail for the first time a couple of weeks ago. Good times indeed, and it adds some nice variety to Buff Creek. At times the trail is buttery smooth. At other times it technical and chunky, especially the southern portion. There are so many rocks to play on, you could spend most of a day just playing on rocks. The west side descent is about the flow, not about top end speed. It starts out chunky and becomes more smooth fairly quickly, but the twists and turns never stop. A lot of fun. I would rate the trail somewhere around 4.5 stars.

Cross country trail riding at its finest with optional free ride features. Lots of variety packed into a dynamite 13 mile loop with options to extend to the larger Buffalo Creek trail system. Be on the lookout for optional lines, especially if you like tech. The optional features on the climb add fun and challenge, while the descent is very well descent focuses on flow. A superbly well designed and entertaining trail!

It seems the scree is getting deeper on Baldy. =(

As I was railing down Sandy Wash today, I was thinking that this trail just keeps on giving and giving. What an awesome fun downhill. Actually it's all amazing fun from the top of Charlie's Cutoff and below.

Really enjoyed climbing this trail. It seems like the type of trail that would be nice to ride in either direction. And it is sooooo much better than the nearby, sandy, double wide section of the CT.

Rather steep and technical the first 1.5 mi climbing out of the Buffalo Creek canyon. After that, it is a fairly easy climb. Looks like it could be a fun DH, especially the bottom 1.5 mi section.

These are good trails for a casual fitness biker in search of a workout on intermediate cross-country sloping trails that don't have a lot of technical features. They are generally fast and have a really nice back-country atmosphere - you have the feeling that you're going somewhere! The surface is a coarse granitic grit that is usually non-threatening but does grab your attention from time to time. The are all shared two-way trails. They cover a lot of ground so don't come without a map or appropriate app. The Colorado Trail passes through this area. You can make a pleasant weekend of it by staying in the primitive Buffalo Creek Camp Ground.

Of the climbing choices out of the Buffalo Creek trailhead, Nice Kitty offers a solid 4-mile climb with a few technical rock sections to climb over and challenge your technical fitness skills. The second half of the climb through the burn zone is a stark reminder of the destruction fire can wreak on the wilderness.