Eleven Mile Canyon was beautiful as we rode alongside the South Platte river and watched many a fly fisherman attempt to catch a fish.
Wagon Tongue Gulch road is also fantastic! It is a jeep road with minimal traffic that winds through pine and aspen forest and has enough technical terrain to keep you alert but not too challenging that you have to hike-a-bike.
CR 100 exited us from the forest and gave us wide open, awe inspiring views of the mountains and valleys.
Eleven Mile Canyon is a well used recreational area which is great, but it also means that there is significant car traffic along the road. Cars weren’t going faster than 25 miles per hour, but they did make the road a bit less tranquil.
The end of the Eleven Mile Canyon Road is gated off so you aren’t able to sneak a peak at Eleven Mile Reservoir on this route.
Holy washboards and traffic on CR 96 and CR 403! Cars go FAST on these gravel roads and kick up a lot of dust and make the washboards worse. This section is beautiful but it definitely was our least favorite part of this ride.
Target shooting is allowed in parts of Pike National Forest and the noise is quite jarring when you are zoned out on a gravel road.
Do this ride if you are near Lake George or Eleven Mile Canyon and you want a beautiful loop route with enough climbing and technical challenges to satisfy an intermediate rider.
You’ll see a little “tail” on the left side of our loop (which is not on the route GPX file), and this was us missing a turn. However, if you continued down that road to Thirtynine Mile Rd, you could get views of the Eleven Mile Reservoir.
We think this would be an amazingly beautiful fall ride given the amount of Aspen groves we went through.
We did this on Memorial Day weekend and we assume that car traffic was a little bit heavier than usual. Per usual, the ideal time to do this ride is probably either early morning or on a weekday.
We camped and started this route along Country Rd 402. Starting and parking in the town of Lake George would be a great option, and one of our followers, Ed Quesada, on Facebook said that the Lake George Library is good place.
In Eleven Mile Canyon Recreation Area, cars must pay for a day pass to enter.
Laura & Rose
Laura Karpinski and Rose Barcklow are the creators of Gravel Bike Adventures. Click on the About page to learn more about them.
