Van Bibber Open Space
LocationVan Bibber Open Space, Arvada, CO 80002
The trailer or oversized parking is at the East entrance off Ward Road and 56th! I tried the West entrance by Silver Quarter Acres and there was no place to park a horse trailer. |
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PDF Map
There is no official trail map of this area on-line but google satellite works pretty well.
Trail Map
You get a pretty good idea of the park's trails via Google Satellite.
Park Fees
Free!
Trailer Parking
There are two oversized parking spots right at the entrance to the park. If there is a horse trailer in one spot I am not sure how you can pull out if there are trucks in front and behind you. I suppose this only works if you go with your friends. I should have brought a cone to block off the spot in front of me. It was a little awkward tying Sam to the right side of the trailer on the edge of the curb to tack.
Luckily there was a hitching post over on the grass to tie up Sam and tack up. I think the white truck was a park ranger. I am thinking that spot normally would be free, thus helping the trailer in front to have room to turn out into the parking lot.
BathroomsI didn't see any.
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WaterI didn't see any water spigots.
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Mounting
There was a rock at the beginning of the trail to the most right out of the parking lot. Some day I will just bring a stool and leave it in the horse trailer.
Footing
We started out on a packed dirt trail that went around the perimeter of the park. We cut across to the cement trail and walked on the grass besides the trail for the rest of the ride.
Horse Hazards
We took the dirt trail to the right and rode counter-clockwise around the park. The trail starts out with the neighborhood to the right and is fairly close to urban back yards, barking dogs, screaming children and all the perks of urban riding. You do not have to ride the perimeter to the North. If you want to stay away from these urban distractions take the middle trail which has the creek as a buffer from the neighborhood.
Chosen Trail
I rode the red loop and did walk by the neighborhood to the North. Sam did fine with the urban obstacles. If you have a spooky horse stick with the blue trail and stay away from the North side fence line. Sam and I did the whole loop at a walk in 30 minutes. It was a really windy day so I was ok with a nice short trail.
Trail Experience
We started off on the trail that was on the right from the parking lot. It was a nice dirt-gravel multiuse trail that followed the electric wires and the fence-line to the North of the neighborhood.
We had some stationary objects to pass.
There were some screaming children in the back yard and we crossed over to the cement road.
And beautiful yards to the North. You could also walk by the cement road and stay farther away from the fence-line.
We took the first fork to the left and trotted up the hill.
We turned right to go up the hill by the South fence-line of the park.
Below is the view from the top of the hill looking back at the mountains.
It had snowed the day before our ride and this downhill section was a little muddy.
We rode a little bit more by the cement path before heading back to the trailer.
Rating
Moderately Easy. I enjoyed this trail. It is a nice place to trot/canter with nicer weather. There is also a bridge you can practice crossing and lots of criss-crossing between the trails. I imagine that when the grass is green I would have a hard time getting Sam to walk between bites of grass.