MORE BEAUTIFUL THAN THE APPALACHIAN TRAIL, more fun than the Continental Divide Trail, and easier to pull off than the Pacific Crest Trail, the Centennial State’s quintessential footpath is all highlights, no filler. Running for 567 total miles between Denver and Durango, the Colorado Trail (CT) winds through six wilderness areas and eight mountain ranges packed with craggy skylines, sparkling lakes, wide-open tundra, and an entire guidebook’s worth of wildflowers. And while the CT isn’t short, compared with marquee long trails that take six months to complete, it’s much more doable—in fact, you can hike the whole thing in perfect summer conditions. “Mile for mile, it’s the most scenic hike the United States has to offer,” says 2020 thru-hiker Robin Mino of Broomfield.
The CT officially dates back to 1973, when U.S. Forest Service employee Bill Lucas embraced the notion of a cross-Colorado hiking route and magazine publisher Merrill Hastings helped spread Lucas’ idea in Colorado magazine, but the Ute people walked its terrain for thousands of years before that. “I was really fascinated by the significance of the land to the Nuche (Ute) people,” says 2020 thru-hiker Darrah Blackwater of Santa Fe, New Mexico. “I learned a lot of the trail is [made up of] trails the Nuche have used: trade routes and how people got from one place to another.” Today, the nonprofit Colorado Trail Foundation maintains the route with the Forest Service and publishes the path’s official guidebook, which breaks the trail into 28 segments. Hundreds of people from Colorado and the world over set out to trek the full trail every year (usually a four- to six-week endeavor), but many more choose to walk just fractions of the path for day, weekend, or weeklong trips.
“The Colorado Trail offers the incredible experience of exploring Colorado,” says Nika Meyers of Aspen, who set a female self-supported fastest known time record on the trail in 2021. “You hike through some of the most gorgeous landscapes ever.” But don’t just take her word for it. In these pages, we’ve divided the CT into four stretches and denoted their respective highlights so you can go see for yourself.
BEST DAYHIKE
TENMILE RANGE
This vertiginous chain of peaks smack in the middle of ski country has plenty to recommend it on its own merits: Over 13.2 miles, you’ll get the trail’s first sustained
