Trinidad Lake State Park
The Wannabe Bike Trail

Once upon a time, there was a railroad spur that ran from Trinidad, Colorado west to the coal mines in the Upper Purgatoire Valley. Over the years, those coal mines closed and the rails were pulled up and removed. Eventually, there were no rail lines running west of Trinidad Dam. As those railroad right-of-ways were given to the railroads by the federal government, when the rail lines were abandoned, title to that land went back to the federal government, who then transferred that title to the Rails to Trails Conservancy, a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization devoted to returning those rail routes to common Americans as biking, hiking and even horseback riding trails. However, the Rails to Trails Conservancy has decided to hold onto this particular railway corridor in case somewhere down the road, the coal mines in the Purgatoire Valley are re-opened again. In that case, track could be relaid quickly and the rail lines made serviceable in just a few months as the legality (and ownership) of the right-of-way is already established.

The section of railroad corridor that I am concerned with here (and have taken it upon myself to name "The Wannabe Bike Trail") runs west from the eastern side of Trinidad Lake State Park to about where the New Elk Mine is, between Weston and Stonewall. That might be a 25-mile distance with several bridges across the Purgatoire River and a couple of crossings of State Highway 12 (The Scenic Highway of Legends) in between. West of Weston the route crosses Bosque del Oso, a 33,000-acre State Wildlife Area before coming to that chunk of dirt still owned by Basin Resources (Montana Power), although Basin may have recently sold that holding to a Japanese consortium who have yet to do much of anything in the area: part of the problem being the lack of a railroad line to get the coal out of the area. That same section of railroad right-of-way (west of Weston) also now has 1 (and maybe 2) 36-inch diameter, 5,000-pounds-per-square-inch natural gas pipeline buried four-feet-deep in that railroad right-of-way. I don't know for sure but the presence of that high-pressure gas pipeline in the ground may preclude the construction of a rail line directly above it. Still, the Rails to Trails Conservancy has not yet allowed the construction of a hiking/biking/horseback riding trail along any part of that right-of-way.

The City of Trinidad pushed for use of that right-of-way to construct a trail connecting the city's Riverwalk with Trinidad Lake State Park. The Scenic Highway of Legends Inc. (another local 501(c)(3) organization) has pushed for use of that right-of-way for a trail from Trinidad Lake State Park to at least Bosque del Oso as part of a bike trail corridor that would parallel State Highway 12 from Trinidad through Stonewall and Cuchara to La Veta (this part of State Highway 12 is one of the most popular (and dangerous) bike rides in Colorado). At this point (2009), everyone is waiting for the State of Colorado to force the construction of the final legs of a bike route that will eventually extend from the Wyoming border to the New Mexico border along the Front Range, and hopefully include this railroad right-of-way. But that may take many years...

In the meantime, we can only look at this beautiful and almost usable route and just drool...