Hello,

I have spent a week per year for about 25 years riding with friends in Colorado, mostly in the Taylor Park and surrounding area.

Here is some info that might help you:

Cottonwood Pass is doable by any vehicle as long as it has the power to climb decently in the mountains while towing your trailer, and has decent brakes for going down the other side. Full size RV's use it all the time.

Taylor Park definitely has the most riding including single track in the area. There is one General Store with one (expensive) gas pump, cabins for rent, and a decent restaurant in Taylor Park. There is another large cabin rental company about 1 mile from the General Store also. Both of these should be findable by searching for "Taylor Park" Colorado Cabins for rent, or something close to that. Trail 414, Taylor Pass, and Pearl Pass and Cement Creek are all great places to ride.

Crested Butte is a beautiful resort town, but because of this, it has high rental prices for everything. It also is surrounded by Wilderness Area (no motor vehicles allowed) on almost all sides. The town is pretty cool, but you will end up traveling quite a ways to get to single track riding although there is some riding that is mostly forest roads up Kebler Pass.

Almont has about 3 restaurants and 2 bars, one General Store, and one gas pump. It has lots of cabins for rent. It is the next closest place to stay that still has reasonable access to Taylor Park. If you stay in Almont you might want to start riding around Ptarmigan Lake since that is the closest area to Almont.

Pitkin is a neat LITTLE town with one General Store, one gas pump, and a few private cabins to rent. It has quite a few areas to ride also, but nothing like Taylor Park.

All of these places start at about 9,000 feet in elevation and go UP to about 12,500 while riding. Your bikes will need to be prepared for running at these altitudes. At the very least, bring a couple of size of smaller main jets if you know how to install them. There have been a couple of times when friends bikes would not even run at over 10 mph in the valley floor of Taylor Park until rejetted. Once you ride in these areas you will be hooked!

Good Luck!
Lorrin

 

Landon, since you mentioned this is your first time there I'd recommend the Gunnison Basin Public Lands map sold in the forest service and ranger stations in the Taylor area. This map is extremely detailed and covers just about everything in the entire area. There are two or three National Geographic maps for this area, but you'd have to buy all three to try and cover what my mentioned map covers. Charles Wells' book, "Guide to Colorado & 4-Wheel Drive Trails is also a great source for the 2-track trails in this area. That book is available online and at some book outlets in the general Taylor area. When some people hear the term "2-track", they think of easy jeep roads like you encountered in the Silverton area...like Cinnamon and Engineer. There are some fairly tough 2-tracks in the Gunnison/Taylor area along with the tough singletracks.

 

Yes,
some of the "4-wheel" jeep roads in this area would be considered tough for inexperienced riders. They have multiple water crossings that can be deep or uncrossable at different times of the year, along with long boulder fields and very steep inclines with drop offs on one side. Both Taylor Pass and Pearl Pass would fall into this category. There are also areas where you must ride up a stream/river bed while the water is flowing round you.

Lorrin

 

Thats good to hear, thats where we are looking to stay.

 

Is this the MVUM or something different? Last year everyone said to get the Latitude 40 map for the Lake City area. Lat 40 Makes one for the Taylor Park, is it not as worthy here?

 

Just got back from that area Tues. night with the family. We were mountain biking and fly fishing. Have been going out the past three summers with a group of dualsport guys. We usually stay at Three Rivers Resort at Almont, they have a variety of cabin sizes. This is a good base camp location for a lot of great riding. Crested Butte to the north has mountain and aspen riding, just south of Gunnison is Hartman Rocks, dirt roads and single track through "Utah like" terrain and Taylor Park to the west has amazing trails out into the mountains. You can pick up the Lattitude 40 maps at most any outdoor/bicycle/motorcycle shop in that area. Those maps have amazing trail/road detail for planning rides. About an hour to the south is Lake City and the famous Alpine Loop. I plan to be back out there in late Aug. with the guys and motorcycles.

 

Correction- from Almont, Taylor Park is to the east.

 

No, Lat 40 Taylor is an excellent map but it doesn't cover the area that the map I mentioned covers. If you already have the Lat 40 map it may cover enough for the trails you want. From what I see on the Lat 40 it stops at Tin Cup and other locations that have some very fun trails. If I'm looking correctly, it doesn't even go as far south as Almont, does it? You have some great trails to the east of Almont and east and south of Tin Cup. Just saying that from what I can tell, the map I referenced has the biggest and best coverage in one map that I have seen. I'm pretty sure my map is not a MVUM style map, as it's not even on their site under this title that I mentioned. The map title is exactly as I stated in my previous post. If I'm wrong on the Taylor Lat 40 map coverage, let me know. I think this Gunnison Basin map is bigger but still in one map.

 

TNC...I don't have a Lat 40 map for that area. I did notice on their site that they have two different maps for the Crested Butte Taylor Lake area, didn't know if one cover more area than the other or not. I will check out the map you mentioned.

 

Here...found it.

National Forest Store: Gunnison Basin Public Lands

You can get it online, but it's also readily available at most any forest or BLM station in the region. I got mine on the way up there from Texas in Pagosa Springs, and I've seen it in just about every other station I stopped by. I love maps. This is a good one...every off road trail, motorized or otherwise, along with every type of land in a different color shade for forest, BLM, private, etc. It's one map that will cover it all. I noticed National Geographic had some good maps of this area too, but you had to buy 2 or 3 to get everything this one has. Oh...it's waterproof and tear resistant too.