SMARTPHONE
With your Android, iPhone, or other smartphone, you can download several apps to help you navigate around the planet.
For hiking, GaiaGPS currently seems to be the go-to app. You can use the free version, or pay about $20 a year to download maps and have access to other helpful perks. Gaia acts much like a GPS unit. It tells you where you are and records your track so you can look at all the stats later and relive the hike, if that’s what you’re into. It’s fun and informative. Strava is another app that uses GPS to determine your place and track your progress. It’s a popular one among cyclists and runners, but there’s no reason hikers can’t use it.
To figure out what peaks you’re seeing on the horizon, there’s PeakFinder AR or PeakVisor, among others. Both of these work offline.
There are also apps for learning knots (Animated Knots by Grog), identifying flowers (iNaturalist), and showing the nearest spot where you can get cell phone reception (Cairn). It doesn’t end there.
PERSONAL LOCATOR BEACON
This was also mentioned in the Introduction. These walkie-talkie–sized devices use satellites and will work to send out an emergency message where cell phones may not. The personal locator beacon (PLB) sends an SOS and your location to rescue agencies. PLBs have the capability to work around the world.
Satellite messengers are a step up from PLBs. These send distress signals and allow the user to send texts and have two-way communication. The more information rescuers have, the better off they and you will be. These aren’t cheap. As mentioned above, the base price is about $350, and with satellite messengers you also need to be on a subscription plan, so that adds another expense.
There are many options with PLBs and satellite messengers, and the technology is expanding rapidly, so research your options to see what’s current and to understand whether you truly need this.
Cave Basin Trail ventures into the Weminuche, Colorado's largest wilderness at 488,000 acres.
Looking down the Barnroof Point trail toward the start, with Twin Buttes on the left.
A panorama taken from the Rim Trail shows, from left to right, the Hogsback, Perins Peak, the La Plata Mountains, and Animas City Mountain.
HIKES IN & NEAR DURANGO
Its obvious Durango is enthusiastic about trails. That enthusiasm started long ago, but the formation back in 1990 of Durango Trails 2000, the local trails advocacy group, really got things cooking. The nonprofit plans routes, energizes the community, and, with mostly volunteer labor, has built or maintains more than 300 miles of trails.
Thanks to the foresight of Durango Trails 2000, the Durango Parks and Recreation Department, La Plata County, the San Juan Mountains Association, and the San Juan National Forest and Bureau of Land Management (and perhaps others I’ve missed), Durango-area residents can hike—sometimes right out your back door—into the nearby hills and beyond into the high country on your way to explore a diversity of ecosystems. Durango Trails 2000 continues to be at the forefront of trail development, and serves as a model for similar organizations around the region.
If you are wondering why Durango is such a well loved and popular place, trails are a huge reason.
CITY TRAILS
The Telegraph Trail System is one popular option. It’s covered later in this chapter in the Raider Ridge hike (page 53) and the Meadow Loop/Telegraph Trail hike (page 56). Plenty of other trails exist, and the maps that accompany those hikes show many of the various trails.
There is a mile-long trail up Smelter Mountain, accessed near the start of CR 210. To get there: As you’re leaving downtown heading south on US 550/160, after crossing the Animas River take a right at the next light. Then quickly take a right onto CR 210, then another right onto a paved access road that leads to the Animas-La Plata intake facility. Go 100 yards and park in the dirt lot on the left (N 37 15.200, W 107 52.726, 6,520 feet). Start hiking downhill briefly to cross a ravine, then steeply uphill to the northwest. Go 1 mile to reach a nice viewpoint just before the mass of communication towers and just as you hit the access road coming from that direction (N 37 15.763, W 107 53.354, 7,560 feet).
A couple of notes on Smelter: Between December 1 and April 15 it’s only open from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m., and dogs are not allowed; this is to protect deer and elk. At all times, dogs must be on a leash to keep them from harassing wildlife. Parks and Wildlife asks humans and dogs to both respect wildlife from a distance.
Just north of the Smelter trailhead, the approximately 10-acre Durango Dog Park lies under the north shadow of Smelter Mountain, just west of the Animas River where US 550/160 crosses it. There is room for a few cars in a dirt lot near the park entrance (N 37 16.086, W 107 53.210), which is south of US 160 and just west of Roosa Avenue. It’s also possible to access the dog park from the Smelter trailhead; follow an old road north about a half-mile to the park.
Several trails, or trail systems, appear on the map on the facing page. Here is a description of most of them:
Centennial Nature Trail is used by many Fort Lewis College students because it connects the lower town areas with the college campus and the Rim Trail. The Nature Trail can be found near the junction of East Sixth Avenue and Tenth Street. Through a series of switchbacks, the trail moves up some 250 feet to the campus mesa, coming out on the west side of the campus just south of the little chapel on the rim. At this same junction at Sixth and Tenth you’ll find the “Sky Steps,” 530 steps that go straight up the mountainside and are a favorite for athletes in training. At the top, you can catch the Rim Trail.
The Rim Trail takes a little sleuthing to follow, particularly on the southern end, but you can make a complete 2.7-mile loop around campus. If you go counterclockwise from where the Centennial Nature Trail meets it, you’ll cross Eighth Avenue (N 37 16.385, W 107 52.181), go south and then northeast, paralleling Goeglein Gulch Road for a while. You’ll pass by the eleventh hole at Hillcrest Golf Club, cross Rim Drive near a three-way intersection (N 37 16.877, W 107 51.943), take a left, and then walk by the top of the city’s Chapman Hill Ski Area. (Another good way to access the Rim Trail is to come up the Lions Den Trail from Chapman Hill.)
The west and northwest parts of the Rim Trail offer excellent views over town and the La Plata Mountains across the valley.
Chapman Hill–Lions Den Trails can be reached by going northeast 0.5 miles on Florida Road from the intersection of East Third Avenue and Fifteenth Street. Park in the Chapman Hill recreation area lot. Look for a trail just north of the skating rink; that’s the Lions Den Trail (N 37 17.050, W 107 52.040). Take it about a mile uphill, then veer right at an intersection to contour the hillside (a left takes you up to the actual Lions Den and you meet Rim Drive at the golf course clubhouse).
It’s another quarter-mile south, paralleling Rim Drive just west of the golf course, to the intersection
