Floyd Hill Open Space
Sitting high above Clear Creek canyon, Floyd Hill offers amazing vistas of the Front Range, Centennial Cone and Lookout Mountain. Designed with both biking and hiking trails, this new trail system sits just 15 minutes from Golden just off I-70. The Sluice (aka Segment 4) is a brand-new 1.3-mile downhill trail and the crown jewel of these world-class trails for bikers, while hikers will have a more peaceful trail experience via hiker-only options.
The Floyd Hill Trail system has come together in just two years and is the culmination of cooperation between stakeholders including COMBA, Clear Creek County, Clear Creek County Open Space, Mountain Area Land Trust, Trust for Public Land, Great Outdoors Colorado and Gates Family Foundation. Sponsors include Team Evergreen Cycling, Yeti Cycles, Pedal of Littleton, Wheat Ridge Cyclery and Colorado Deck Master.
Special thanks to all the mountain bikers who showed up to meetings to voice support for mountain-bike specific trails and those who have donated time and talent from digging to helping to spread the word. We couldn’t have done this without YOU!
We do weekly maintenance on The Sluice and would love your help!
The Sluice -AKA Segment 4
The Sluice is a 1.3-mile bike-only directional downhill trail. Built specifically for bikes on public lands in Clear Creek County, the trail is the first of its kind on Colorado’s Front Range, an area encompassing the foothills west of Denver.
As the area’s first purpose-built downhill mountain bike trail, The Sluice features a variety of manmade features—the majority of which are not found elsewhere on Front Range trails—including jumps, berms, drops, step-downs, step-ups, technical rock lines and several optional alternative lines (places where the trails splits giving riders more and less challenging choices).
Dropping 700 vertical feet—with I-70, Colorado’s main mountain artery, as a backdrop—the Sluice’s main trail is rated blue square/black diamond, with the alt. lines varying in difficulty from black to double-black diamond.
Floyd Hill Open Space Project Stats
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Project Type: New trail system
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User Groups: Mountain bikers, hikers, trail runners
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Difficulty: Easy – Most Difficult
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Distance: 10-12 Miles
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Nature: Singletrack
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Status: 11 miles constructed, final mile to be completed Sept. 2020
Floyd Hill Open Space Background & Timeline
2015 – Clear Creek County Open Space Commission (CCCOSC) approached the landowner of a large parcel on the north side of I-70 who had put his property on the market. Initial discussions were not successful and the property did not sell.
2016 – Mountain Area Land Trust (MALT) and CCCOS met with Jefferson County Open Space to see if they had an interest in partnering to purchase a portion of the parcel for sale on North Floyd Hill. Jeffco Open Space saw a benefit and was willing to help purchase the parcel. Trust for Public Lands (TPL) provided a staff member who wrote the GOCO Open Space grant which was successfully funded. Clear Creek County Open Space and Jefferson County Open Space provided matching funds.
2017 - The property was purchased by TPL and then transferred to Clear Creek and Jefferson Counties with MALT holding a conservation easement on the 108 acre parcel which is visible from I70. CCCOS owns an additional 600 plus acres that goes from the Jefferson County line west along the ridge and the Canyon.
2017 – In early Fall, to channel early users of the area across the meadow, a trail was built across the meadow heading west and north. Money from the Gates Family Foundation from a grant given to MALT for development of trails at the Floyd Hill Open Space Trailhead was used to build the trail.
2017-2018 – COMBA, Team Evergreen Cycling, MALT, TPL and CCCOS provided funding to pay a consultant to design a trail system starting from the Floyd Hill Open Space Trailhead that would utilize the 600 plus acres of Clear Creek County Open Space. Several public meetings were held to get input with overwhelming support from mountain bikers. In mid 2018, the Floyd Hill Open Space Trail System Master Plan was completed. It proposed a network of about 13 miles of trails. The Clear Creek Trail Crew and volunteers from COMBA, Volunteers for Outdoors Colorado, Teenworks, and Mile High Youth Corps, and assorted corporate volunteers have worked on trail construction.
2018-2019 – COMBA and Team Evergreen spearheaded a fundraising campaign to secure funds to build “Segment 4,” a downhill bike only trail that would come down the east side of the 108 acres. Combined with funding from Gates Family Foundation and Clear Creek County sufficient funding was raised to hire FlowRide Concepts to build the trail with support from COMBA’s Trails Team and volunteers.
August 21, 2019 - Segment 4 aka The Sluice opened to the public with more than 100 mountain bikers in attendance.
Sept. 2020 - Volunteers finish the last mile and the Floyd Hill system is complete!