Goose Creek Trail Colorado Hike Guide

Goose Creek Trail is an out and back hike located in Deckers, Colorado. This hike follows a well established dirt trail and offers amazing views at the unique landscape in Lost Creek Wilderness. This is a family friendly hike and one suitable for all skill levels. Goose Creek Trail can be worked into a larger overnight backpack trip if you plan it correctly.

Goose Creek Trail Quick Facts

Goose Creek Trail: ★★★ (3.5/5 Stars)

Distance: 9.48 Miles RT (Includes Hike to Old Buildings)

Elevation Start: 8,500 ft

Highest Point: 9,200 ft

Total Elevation Gain: 1,700 ft

Estimated Time to Complete: 4-5 Hours RT

Difficulty: Easy – Moderate  What does this mean?

Class: Class 1/ Low Class 2 – What does this mean?

Season: Year-Round (Expect occasional snow/ice December – March)

Check the Weather Forecast

Directions to Goose Creek

Trailhead: Goose Creek

Getting Here: From Conifer: Drive west on 285 to Pine Junction. Turn left (south) at Pine Junction on to Jefferson County Road 126. Drive 21.8 miles until you reach Forest Service Road 211. This is a narrow dirt road, but passable in all vehicles. Drive 2 miles and turn right at the sign pointing to Goose Creek. Drive another 1.1 miles until you reach a fork in the road, bear left here. Drive another 5.2 miles until you reach another intersection, left takes you to a private ranch, proceed right. After an additional 4.7 miles, you will reach the Goose Creek trailhead turnoff on your right. Continue here for another 1.3 miles until you reach the parking area. The trail starts near the large wooden sign before the bigger parking area.

You can enter Goose Creek trailhead into your favorite navigational device, but be aware, service is extremely hard to find in this area. Alternative directions are recommended.

Fees: None

Parking: There is a small parking lot near the trailhead that can fit about 20-30 cars. The parking area will get busy during summer months. There are no bathrooms located near the parking area for Goose Creek trail.

Summary

Dogs: Goose Creek trail is a dog friendly hike with lots of water sources along the way. Dogs should be leashed during this hike.

Camping: Camping is allowed in along the Goose Creek trail, be sure to follow the “leave no trace” and pack in/pack out rules. Campfires are generally allowed in a contained fire ring, but defer to any fire restrictions before lighting up.

Make it a Loop: The Goose Creek trail is an out and back hike, but Lost Creek wilderness has loads of different trails to choose from if you want to extend your hike. This is a great spot to backpack and hike year-round due to relatively small elevations aka less snow in the winter. View the Lost Creek Wilderness map on this page.

Trail X Factors: True End to Hike

Unlike many trails which have a final destination, Goose Creek trail does not have a definite ending. Part of Lost Creek Wilderness, you could easily follow the trail for miles and miles past where this post ends the hike. For me and most others who hike Goose Creek trail, the end of the hike was the old mining area and old milling equipment. However, if you didn’t do your research beforehand, you could easily hike for 10+ miles before finding a true end.

Hike Tip(s): Explore!

If you are looking to explore, boulder and do some rock scrambling, Goose Creek trail is one for you. The unique landscape on Goose Creek trail has numerous options to do some off trail exploring. Some of the best areas to do this are past the old mining buildings in the canyon where the trail ends. I had Juno with me and was running out of daylight, otherwise, I would have spent hours scrambling up the rocks for better views.

My other tip would be regarding the old buildings. If you are tired and don’t want to hike past the old mining buildings, you aren’t missing much. Sure, the canyon is beautiful, but from a historical perspective, the best sites are the old buildings, not the two pieces of rusty steel equipment.

Goose Creek Hike Route

Gear Needed

• Men’s Trail Runners
• Women’s Trail Runners
• La Sportiva Trango Hiking Boots (Men’s)
• La Sportiva Trango Hiking Booths (Women’s)
• Backpack
• Food & Water
• Optional: Garmin inReach
• Optional: Hiking Poles
• Optional: Headlamp
• Optional: Garmin Fenix Watch
• Optional: Camera and Lens
• Optional: GoPro, Joby Tripod
• *Links included in this description might be affiliate links. If you purchase a product or service with the links that I provide I may receive a small commission. There is no additional charge to you.

My Trip to Goose Creek Trail: April 2018

Late Spring, one of my least favorite seasons in Colorado. Snowboard season is wrapping up and there is (generally) too much snow to due any kind of high elevation hikes. During April 2018, I was also training for a 70.3 triathlon, which demanded 6 days of training per week. I was going insane and needed to get into nature. After work one day, I found a hike that I had not done before, Goose Creek Trail. I loaded up the car with Juno and hit the road. I left around 2-3PM and expected to be home by 7-8PM. Pulled up the trailhead on my phone GPS, ETA of 1.5 hours. Ouch, not the way I wanted to start this trip…Jackie was going to kill me!

After a long and slow drive to Deckers, I finally reached the trailhead after an hour and a half of driving. It was 4PM and I was the only car there. According to my watch, I had 3.5 hours until the sunset. At a pace of 3 miles per hour, I would have just enough time to squeeze this 9+ mile hike in. I found the start for Goose Creek trail, signed into the TH registry and hit the dirt. The first ½ mile of the hike worked through remnants of the Hayman fire area of 2002. Almost 16 years later and the area still had no signs of recovery from this devastating fire. After a short bit of hiking through the burn area, the trail turned into the forest and started following Goose Creek.

The trail was packed dirt and very easy to follow. Since the winter had been dry in the area, there was also no snow (or mud) on the ground which was pretty nice for early April. After about a mile of hiking, the trail departed Goose Creek and started to work up the side of the valley. The terrain of the Goose Creek trail screamed mountain lion and for some odd reason, I had the feeling in the back of my head the entire hike that I was going to run into one (luckily, I did not).  It felt great to be outside and I was enjoying the serenity of this hike.

After a couple of miles, the trail started to gain a bit of elevation, then lose it a little while later. This pattern repeated for about a mile and a half and I was not looking forward to running this section back on the way back to the car. The Goose Creek trail had a very unique sereny to it: massive granite and rock cliffs towering over patches of green forest. I had not spent much time in Lost Creek wilderness, but this awesome landscape made me want to explore it some more.

After about 3.5 miles of hiking, I began to look for the “end of the trail”. At 3.7 or so, I encountered the turnoff for the historic buildings. It was about 5:30PM and I knew time was running out. I wasn’t sure how long I had to go until the “end”, so I decided to just check out the historic buildings and call it a day. The trail turned a bit rocky and I headed a couple of hundred yards down to 2 old buildings. Signs informed me that this area was where workers were housed about 100 years before. At the time, the goal was to build a dam around Goose Creek in order to control the water in the area. The project ultimately failed, but the buildings and some old equipment remain.

After scoping out the buildings, I decided to head up to the dam mill site. Juno and I followed the trail up the side of yet another hill and eventually reached a massive canyon surrounded by steep granite cliffs. It was apparent this was the dam site, but the “equipment” was a huge let down. There were two pieces of rusty steel embedded into the hard rock. Neat. Trying to salvage the extra mileage, I kept hiking past the equipment into a large field. The trail I was following came to an abrupt end (well, it kept going through some rocks, but with Juno, I was not able to follow it). We stopped for a quick water break and I tied up Juno to a tree to explore a bit. I scrambled up some rocks in hopes to find a better view, but left empty handed. I had read about a spot where you could have spectacular mountain views, but couldn’t locate it.

After the quick explore sesh, it was about 6PM and I knew I had to hustle back to the car in order to avoid using my phone for a flashlight. The hike back along the Goose Creek trail was very uneventful, but that feeling of encountering a mountain lion increased ten-fold. I decided to pop on a podcast through my phone in order to add some noise to the otherwise silent atmosphere. We hustled back for another hour or so, reaching the car right around 7:45PM. All things considered, I was pretty happy with our time but wished I wasn’t so rushed so that I could have explored the area more.

When I finally did get cell service, Jackie was about 2 minutes away from calling the White House to report a missing person. I explained I was fine, but Goose Creek trail had no cell service and was longer than I had expected. Overall, I enjoyed the hike and would certainly revisit to try out some other trails in the area. What Goose Creek trail lacked in spectacular mountain views, it made up for in unique exploring options through a variety of rocks.