| Difficulty: | Number: | Miles: | Altitude: | Obstacles: | Time: |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Easy 2 | FR233 | 2.50 | 8,760 to 8,920 ft. | None | 1-2 hours |
Closure:
July - Best
August - Best
September - Best
October - Best
Accessed:
From Nederland, CO. head west on West 2nd Street toward North Jefferson Street going 0.3 miles. Continue onto Colorado-72 W/Caribou Street and continue to follow Colorado-72 West for 4.8 miles. Turn right into the Gordon Gulch dispersed camping area and follow FR226 northeast. Turn right at the fourth right hand turn to start Gordon Gulch 4WD road.
Near Sugarloaf Mountain, the town of Sugarloaf once existed. It started in the early 1860s when prospectors found gold ore and used an arrastra to crush the ore to free the gold. Once the surface ore was depleted the area was abandonded. In 1873 another boom took place when tellurium containing gold and silver was discovered. The Livingston Mine near Sugarloaf produced $300,000 worth of gold. After it closed a prospector named Miles discovered rich gold ore in 1902 in a potato patch close to the old mine. In a week Miles prospected $20,000 from the potato patch using a scraper. Of course the mine was named the Potato Patch. In 1915 the United States Gold Corporation constructed a large cyanide mill near Sugarloaf to process low-grade ore. By 1940 the mill was closed and during World War II the equipement in the mill was pulled during a scrap drive.
Because the Colorado & Northwestern could not make it on the revenue from hauling mine ore, it turned to tourists to finance the line. A 20x30 foot depot, sidings and a wye were installed at Sunset. The Columbine Hotel in Sunset put up the tourists and kept them fed in the large dining hall. In 1909, the Colorado & Northwestern Railroad was replaced by the Denver, Boulder & Western, often dubbed the "drink beer and wine" by its carefree passengers. In 1919 a flood washed out miles of track and took out some of the railroad bridges causing the line to shut down and the tracks pulled up leaving the rail road grade as a rough road. The demise of the line came from a variety of factors, including: the extremely harsh winter conditions in the Rocky Mountains, which limited the tourist trade to about four months per year, forced frequent line closures, and periodically killed train crews, plus the advent of the automobile and the closure of the surrounding mines.
Jessen, Kenneth Ghost Towns Colorado Style, Volumn 1, 1st ed. Loveland, Colorado: J.V. Publications, 1998. Print.
Wolle, Muriel Sibell Stampede to Timberline, 2nd ed. Athens, Ohio: Swallow Press, 1974. Print.
Helmuth, Ed and Gloria The Passes of Colorado, 1st ed. Boulder, Colorado: Pruett Publishing, 1994. Print.
The trees will get dense as you head more north. The road will come out into an open area and will cross Gordon Gulch at its upper reaches. As you cross the gulch there is a single track trail on your right. This is shown as FR233.1B, but it may have grown in with little use. The road only goes a short distance. This is also where the road your on changes to FR233.1A. After crossing the gulch there will be more dispersed campsites along the road. The road will have turned to the west, where you will come to an intersection. The road to the left is FR233.1A. After a quarter of a mile you will come to another intersection with FR233.1A on the right and FR233.1F on the left. Both of these roads go a short distance and connect with the Switzerland Trail road.
Back at the previous intersection, the right is FR233.1C. It goes a short distance before coming to another intersection. The left is FR233.1C which will connect with the Switzerland Trail. The right is FR233.1D, which goes about a quarter of a mile into the forest to some dispersed campsites.