DIRECTIONS:

From State Hwy 14 south of Walden, head west on County Road 24 (paved) for about 9 1/2 miles until it turns into a good dirt road. After another mile and a half, you’ll reach the Grizzly Guard Station (a rentable cabin!) and start working your way up the Routt National Forest roads. The roads get a bit rougher but still pretty good, SUV recommended. A quarter mile past the guard station turn north onto 615.1 towards Teal Lake. Follow this road for 4 miles to the Newcomb Creek Trailhead.

HIKE DESCRIPTION:

Newcomb Creek Trail…my experience with this trail was a love/hate one… The trail is certainly beautiful. It’s easy, the wildflowers are amazing, the aspens are amazing, it enters the wilderness almost immediately, but the mosquitos…oh the mosquitos… I have never experienced mosquitos like this. It was a hot and humid (relatively) summer afternoon when I hiked this trail and there were storms brewing in the area. When the mosquitos really got bad I was praying for rain, it never came. I put on my rain shell pulled up the hood and pulled it tight around my face. When I almost died of heat stroke, I took it off and suffered the mosquitos again until I got back to the car. Wow, the mosquitos here are no joke.

That being said, this really is a beautiful trail. The hike begins along the banks of Newcomb Creek with wildflowers galore and the creek winding through the park. Soon you enter beautiful aspen forest (this would be the perfect fall colors hike) and start crossing marshy meadows. This is where the mosquitos really get busy… The trail switches off from meadows to aspen forests for the foreseeable future. Sometimes the trail gets overgrown and hard to follow. You may find yourself hiking through wet marshes, chances are you are off trail but just continue and you’ll pick up the official trail again.

If you hike for about 4.5 miles you’ll get to Round Mountain Lake. I never intended to get that far. I hiked about 1 3/4 miles to the heart of Newcomb Park. At the point that I stopped, there were beautiful wildflowers and a nice view of Round Mountain and the Continental Divide in the distance. It’s about another mile through the park until the hike starts to climb in elevation but this spot suited me just fine. After taking some photos, I high-tailed it back to the trailhead trying to escape the mosquito apocalypse.

What can I say…this is a beautiful trail in a beautiful area. If not for the darn mosquitos…