Another stretch of a long-dreamed trail has opened in a canyon west of Denver. 

Jefferson County officials and enthusiasts recently gathered for a ribbon cutting at a new trailhead in Clear Creek Canyon Park — the rugged, scenic site of progress on the Peaks to Plains Trail. 

A 2006 feasibility study envisioned what’s been called “a truly quintessential Colorado experience”: a 65-mile trail connecting bike paths between Denver and the Clear Creek headwaters high on Loveland Pass. With routes largely realized east to the plains and west to the peaks, a passage stretching more than 13 miles through Clear Creek Canyon has been the focus of recent years. 

And now comes another 1½ miles. 

The path over pavement and bridges has been called the Huntsman segment, starting from a new parking lot off U.S. 6 near Golden. Built for 42 vehicles, the CCR Trailhead is a nod to the Colorado Central Railroad that once ran in the place of the highway. 

Since the Gateway Trailhead opened at the mouth of the canyon closer to town in 2021, cyclists, runners and dog walkers had traveled almost two miles to a construction gate for the Huntsman segment. 

“Now people come around the corner and see the gate gone,” said Scot Grossman, the project manager with Jefferson County Open Space. “People have been waiting for this a long time.” 

For years prior to 2022, when ground broke on the segment that Grossman called “a lot different than most of what we’ve done in the past.” The Huntsman segment includes a viaduct structure spanning about 1,200 feet that Grossman has described as a “flyover,” like the elevated highway through Glenwood Canyon on a smaller scale. 

“You’re kind of hovering or floating over everything,” he said. “It’s going to give you a really unique perspective of the canyon.”

The segment also includes five bridges over the creek carving the canyon, similar to those built back toward the Gateway trailhead. Grossman said more bridges and another viaduct structure are planned for the next 1½ miles of the Huntsman’s Rancho segment, to be complete with another parking lot for about 70 vehicles.

Construction is well underway on that next segment. Grossman said the goal is to open around this time next year. 

From there, Jefferson County has identified a six-mile gap up through the canyon — what would complete a signature 13½ miles of the Peaks to Plains Trail and, in the county’s view, complete the full vision of Clear Creek Canyon Park that’s been decades in the making. The canyon’s trail construction in recent years has advanced a bustling hub of recreation, including rock climbers and creek floaters along with Golden locals and sightseeing tourists on foot and bike. 

Funding has yet to be identified for those next six miles. Grossman said the three miles and associated infrastructure for the Huntsman and Huntsman’s Rancho segments are costing around $80 million, with funding from Jefferson County Open Space’s sales tax-built account, Great Outdoors Colorado and other state grants. 

The overall project has also sought federal funding. “Like most people looking at federal funding this year, that has been flipped on its head,” Grossman said. “So our strategies are a bit up in the air.”