Sand Creek Greenway
Location21000 E 6th Ave, Aurora, CO 80011
If you put this address into your Iphone you will probably be sent to the wrong place. The Coal Creek arena is at the junction of road 30 and E 6th parkway. I got lost trying to find the Coal Creek Arena and the address on apple maps was not accurate. When I used Google Maps or Waze it sent me to the right place. |
Website |
PDF Map
Trail Map
Here is an alternative map of the whole Greenway trail. I did not find this map very useful.
Google maps showed the trail a lot better. In the bottom right corner is the Coal Creek Arena and parking area. You can see the trail going through Environmental Park, past the golf course, under Colfax and Airport then making a loop by the Star K Ranch Nature center. We stayed on this more eastern section of the Greenway which seemed pretty horse friendly.
Park Fees
Free.
Trailer Parking
Horse trailer parking is on the north side of the parking lot to the side of the rodeo arena. We parked in the area in the red circle. It looks small on the map but the parking lot was pretty huge. It was very sandy and the middle of the lot was pretty uneven. There was enough room for 4-5 horse trailers.
Mounting |
Water |
Bathrooms |
No obvious benches in parking lot. I got on from my trailer bumper.
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No water spigot
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Porta-potty
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Footing
Nice soft sand or packed dirt. Great footing for a trot or canter.
Horse Hazards
We rode under 3 large underpasses and dismounted to help our horses on the way out. We also went over a few bridges. We saw bikers and joggers and strollers. This is an urban trail but it is also strangely very horse-friendly if your horse does not spook easily. Between Colfax and Airport Rd. we were fairly close to a railroad track. There are cut-out horse statutes around the Star K Ranch and the Nature Center. I would ride this trail in the winter before the bugs got bad. We rode in early April and the bugs were already getting bad.
Chosen Trail
We rode from the Coal Creek Arena to the Star K Ranch nature center. We rode almost 8 miles in about 2 hrs and 20 minutes at a gaited horse walking pace. We did go under 3 underpasses twice and at one point were close to the rail road tracks between Colfax and Airport road.
Trail Experience
We headed out on the Sand Creek Greenway Trail to the right of the rodeo arena. Right away we went under an underpass under E 6th Ave. The traffic was light and the underpass was pretty open so our horses did ok.
Going around some curves we approached a golf course behind the Breck Recreation Center.
The trail went along the golf course fence. There was a porta potty on the golf course that opened by the trail. We watched to make sure it was not occupied so someone would not open the door and startle our horses. My riding buddy Lisa says she scans the area for golf bags before walking by the porta potty.
I dismounted to help Sam cross this bridge and then we approached Colfax. I hand-walked Sam under the underpass.
We got back on our horses and then dismounted again to help them cross the bridge.
After the bridge we were pretty close to the rail-road tracks. From here to Airport road we trotted hoping to avoid any close-by trains. There were a lot of bugs on this section by the creek and trotting also helped us out-run the bugs. We crossed another cement bridge.
We crossed under Airport Road. This was the last underpass on the way out. We remounted on the west side of Airport Rd using the cement retaining wall.
After Airport Road the trail was again very lovely! There were several offshoots that went closer to the creek. We stayed on the main trail to avoid bugs and deep water river crossings.
This sign read "High-line Canal trail 0.5 miles". We stayed straight.
At the next fork we kept right onto a dirt single-track that headed toward the Star K Ranch Nature Center. We passed some logs and stumps that got some side-eye from both of our horses.
We headed east continuing on the loop around the nature center. We took the next left to get back on the main trail. The little side trails were clearly marked "No Horses".
Pretty views on the nice trail back. We did stop and look at some tires by the creek as we approached the railroad tracks after going under Airport Road.
We retraced our steps and enjoyed more trotting on the way back.
Rating
Moderately Difficult. I really enjoyed this trail! The trail was wide and soft and it was very tempting to trot and canter the whole trail. The bridges and underpasses made this trail harder. Our horses did great but we also dismounted to help them and have fairly bombproof horses. This is an urban trail. If you ride it a lot it would be really easy. Great winter trail before bug-season.