FRISCO • From the shoreline of Dillon Reservoir, a thin path rose up through the pines, fresh dirt streaked with bike tracks.

Riders were getting their first taste of the latest singletrack at Peninsula Recreation Area.

“It’s great,” went the review from local Peter Wessel. “It’s nice to see all these new trails.”

Wonderland Trail is the next to join the steadily-growing network criss-crossing the slice of country jutting out to the lake like a thumb’s-up. The trail is aptly named, alluding to the land that more and more people on foot and bike are getting to know — indeed a wondrous land of forest and lupine-splashed hills rolling up to the peninsula crest, overlooking the water and Tenmile Range.

Download PDF

Peninsula Recreation Area’s map previously showed a blank in a circuit of loops. In recent days, Wonderland Trail filled that blank, tying into the system from near the peninsula’s northern tip.

“Wonderland really pulls it all together,” said Pete Swenson, the town of Frisco trails manager who has orchestrated the network expansion in recent years.

Around these Summit County ski resorts, residents like to say they came for the winter and stayed for the summer. The Peninsula trails are giving them more reasons to stay — 17-plus miles more.

For the rare-in-Colorado proximity to water, for the proximity to town and the opportunities in the early season, when snow is still shedding from the high country, “you can’t beat it,” said Phil Lindeman, a local enthusiast.

“And all that trail work they’ve been doing,” he added, “I mean, they’ve made trails that I never saw coming.”

Splitting time between homes in Denver and Silverthorne, Wessel is another who has watched the revolution here in recent years. He appreciates the access for his e-mountain bike, for one.

“And there’s just a great variety of trails that aren’t chewed up like a lot of trails on the Front Range,” he said.

There’s your unintended invitation, Denverites.

The Peninsula trails were meant for locals first and foremost. While also recognizing tourism benefits of a year-round amenity, locals were the top priority of a 2019 master plan that envisioned recreation beyond the Nordic center and tubing hill.

Frisco leadership saw potential across the terrain as it changed from snow white to green. As did mountain bikers and runners, who had blazed trails themselves above the popular Perimeter Trail encircling the lake. Surveys showed broad interest for hiking and mountain biking improvements ahead of the town taking over the Nordic center in 2016.

Around that time, Swenson was hired as Frisco’s Nordic center and trails manager. Other than the Perimeter Trail, he recalled scattered timber and logging roads scouring the peninsula.

“It was just a little bit rough. It wasn’t some place you’d recommend to someone,” Swenson said. “It wasn’t this amazing experience, because it wasn’t designed for summer recreation.”

It could be designed through a special-use permit between the town and land-owning U.S. Forest Service — an agreement allowing the town to develop agency-approved recreation, similar to permits held by ski areas. The arrangement initially came as part of a joint mission to address beetle-kill trees across the peninsula.

“A lot of mature trees had to get removed,” said Sam Massman, the local district ranger. “And secondly was this master development plan the town went through in hiring Pete Swenson and developing a vision for a more up-to-date trail system.”

The vision is nearly complete.

“We’re probably 90% to where we envisioned we wanted to be six years ago,” Swenson said.

The most dramatic additions: a pair of steep, swooping, expert-level lines called Sky Pilot and Aftermath, finished last year. The trails boast big drops, big air and high and tight berms — adding to the BMX-type features at the lower Frisco Adventure park.

Sky Pilot and Aftermath are trails you’d expect at a lift-served ski area, said Lindeman, the local rider. “It’s insane. Probably the best bike jumping park in the mountains that’s free I would say.”

Peninsula Recreation Area’s trails are otherwise rated for beginners and intermediate-level riders.

More next-level trails are being imagined for a vast swath of forest to the south.

Locals familiar with Miners Creek and Rainbow Lake know that landscape as “the Backyard,” spanning Mount Royal and Ophir Mountain. The Forest Service is eyeing wildfire mitigation across 1,250 acres and about 25 miles of trails to be decommissioned, re-rerouted and newly built.

Officials have been in talks on an arrangement similar to the one that led to the Peninsula trails.

“I would say the trust we built planning the Peninsula between the town and (the Forest Service) carries over,” Massman said.

But the Backyard poses “a more complicated set of goals,” he said. It’s a larger and steeper mosaic where recreation interests are more deeply rooted than they were with the Peninsula. There are emotions tied to the trails that would fall to Frisco’s management.

For the town, the question is similar to what it was for the 775-acre Peninsula Recreation Area: “how much we can bite off,” said Mayor Rick Ihnken.

His trust is in Swenson, who managed to grow his team and acquire funds to realize the Peninsula trails over the years. “I would imagine Pete taking (the Backyard) on much like the Peninsula,” Ihnken said.

It’s more than trails here, Swenson is quick to point out.

At bordering campgrounds, one spots paddleboarders and kayakers heading out on the water. Others take to the disc golf course and skate park. Mountain biking gets the buzz, “but honestly I think trail running is one of the most amazing experiences here,” Swenson said. “You can soak up the view the whole time.”

You can bring the whole family, he is most proud to say.

“When I see a family out there with small kids on bikes or they’re hiking, those are the most rewarding moments. It feels like, OK, we’re doing something good here.”