Matthews/Winters-Dakota Ridge Trail

My new favorite place to hike!
I haven’t been too ambitious lately with finding new spots to hike thanks to the ever rising price of gas but this place? This place is good. I usually go to Red Rocks but wanted to mix it up a bit and turned into the parking lo instead of heading down the road to Red Rocks.
When you make your way over to the trail, it’s a bit gradual but then you get on the trail and it’s fantastic with rolling trails constantly going up and down. I had my heart rate monitor on and was constantly at a rate that was kicking my butt but didn’t leave my breathless. The best part was about 45 minutes into the hike where I stopped and had lunch while taking a look at the beautiful Red Rocks. The way back was easier since I knew what to expect full of people hiking, running, biking, etc. When I got back to my car I looked at my heart rate monitor and burned over 900 calories in under two hours so I was a happy gal.

Good place to get some trail running, biking, or walking in!!! Can sometimes be technical on a mtn. bike but very fun! This trail does get busy though during the hotter months. Best time to go is early morning or early afternoon!!!

I joined some
folks for an after-​work hike here on a Monday afternoon. We took the Village Walk & Red Rocks trails, which were an out and back. It was an easy-​moderate hike, nothing too strenuous, which was great because I was concerned about how well my knee was going to fair. The views are gorgeous and not to be missed! I would highly recommend this hike. Although, it is not a very wide trail and climbing the hill to get off of the trail every 3min for a biker is quite annoying. This would be much more pleasant if more of the trail was hiker-​only.

Adding to the two before we took the Red Rocks Trail and it was a great ride. Our two kids (10 &13) came with and while we had to hike a bike a few sections for the most part it was just hard enough to keep it fun. We made it to where the Morrison Slide Trail meets up and then just retraced our steps.
Hikers, runner and other mtn bikers that we’ve encountered here have all been really courteous and minding the trail maps to preserve the integrity of the trail. This really is a great hiking/​running trail.
My only complaint, and it’s a small one, is the heavily graveled trail that leads to the actual trail. It’s fine for hikers but man! I hate how slidy it is on my bike. That is scary than the rocky part farther up.
Also, bring lots of water. There is no shade and on a warm day you notice!

To add to Susie’s review, take the Morison Slide Trail up to the top of the plateau that overlooks the park. It has great views, and you get away from more of the crowd, although you’ll still run into a few, more hardier folks up there. it only adds about a half mile, plus it turns it into a loop hike. It rejoins the main trail down by Red Rocks end of the park. Also, if you mountain bike, coming down the slide trail at the Red Rocks end is a super gnarly decent, intermediate to advanced, with very technical parts, including inconvientely placed boudlers and 300 degree switchbacks with big drop-​offs… a total blast, Climbing up that part sucks though. Going up the east end is not too bad, coming down it is fast with great technical sections and switchbacks. Lastly, the Dakota Ridge trail, across the valley on the other side of the road, is pretty rough, a great run, a hairy mountain bike ride, well worth it, with great views. Plus you can make a giant loop out of it by linking back to Mathews-​Winters. Speaking from experience, start a half to hour earlier than you think you’ll need if you’re gonna run it, and you go late in the day, otherwise you may finish in the dark.

Trail running rocks. This course is a bit tough if you’re used to Denver’s flat, paved streets and even sidewalks. But worth it if you like to kick your own arse. Lots of mountain bikers too but they are courteous to runners. Lots of hills and stuff. Fun run. You can split it up too and do just Matthews/​Winters for a nice 3.5 mile or so run. Take water if you’re going to do the Ridge too– it’s about 7 miles altogether, I think.