JEFFERSON COUNTY, Colo. — Temporarily closing muddy trails in Jeffco Open Space (JCOS) parks is not a new tactic, but this year, a couple parks have remained closed for not just a couple days or a week, but more than a month.
In the final two weeks of January, several JCOS parks closed due to muddy conditions, including Matthews/Winters Park, Hildebrand Ranch Park, Apex Park, Deer Creek Canyon Park, and White Ranch Park (east side). On Feb. 23, Hildebrand and Matthews/Winters both opened, followed by Apex on March 3.
However, Deer Creek and White Ranch (east side) are still closed for public use.
Matt Robbins, community connections director with Jefferson County Parks & Conservation (Open Space), said a closure like this, that has lasted more than five consecutive weeks, is not the norm, but JCOS decides closure lengths based on weather. And the Front Range has seen a fluctuation of snowstorms followed by unseasonably warm weather this year — perfect conditions for mud-making.
"While closing trails and parks for muddy conditions is not a new management technique, it has increased in occurrences and length over the past few years for a few reasons," Robbins explained.
Snow and frozen mixes typically impact the trails more than normal rainfall, he explained.
"Trails tend to dry out faster after a typical rain event but hold moisture after a snow event, as the snow slowly melts and continues to create muddy conditions in many parts of the trail system," Robbins said. "Therefore, we do sometimes stay closed during a cold or warm snap, especially in between the thaw and freeze events we typically have in the winter and spring."
To avoid public confusion, JCOS tries to limit how often it closes, reopens, and then re-closes a park.
"While physically opening a park for a few days seems easy, it takes field staff almost a full day to inspect all the parks, notify teams, get approval, and then place barriers," Robbins said. "This back and forth overall can cause more confusion to visitors looking to do the right thing... Closing or opening for just one or two days before the weather changes again is also a hard call to make."
The Front Range of Colorado has experienced an increase in the number of mid-winter weather events that drop precipitation and are followed by an increase in temperature. While this pattern is common in the spring, it is becoming more frequent, Robbins explained.
JCOS parks see more than 7 million visitors every year. Asking late winter and spring visitors to walk through the mud, and assume every person follows those guidelines, is not enough to save soft surface trails, Robbins said.
"Closures have become necessary to educate and enforce the seriousness of the issue, and while it's not an exact science, we do try to close parks and trails when they are the muddiest," he said.
If you're headed to a park that is open but may have mud, JCOS asks that you stick to concrete, or hard-surface or aggregate-surface trails. If most of the trails in the park are in good shape but there are spots of mud, simply walk through it, not around it. Walking around mud patches creates trail braiding, which widens one singular path into multiple paths that weave around each other. This not only damages the trail, but can destroy nearby vegetation and habitat for small creatures.
To stay up to date on trail closures and openings, follow @JeffcoOpenSpace on X (Twitter) or sign up for email alerts here.
