The City of Steamboat Springs Parks, Open Space and Recreational Services Department is excited to announce the kickoff of a new trail project on Emerald Mountain this week. The Morning Gloria Trail has been designed and will be constructed as a new sustainable multi use non motorized recreational trail on Emerald Mountain. The trail will be approximately 4.2 miles in length and have an average grade less than 10%. The trail width will be a minimum of 36 inches wide to accommodate hand cyclists.
The City has been awarded $102,775 in grant funds from Great Outdoors Colorado (GOCO) for trail construction. The City has approved matching funds of $58,000 from the 2A Accommodations Tax.
After a Request for Qualifications and competitive Request for Proposal process, the City has awarded Routt County Riders (RCR) with the contract to construct the Morning Gloria Trail. Trail construction will begin on June 9, 2014 and may take approximately 45 days to complete. Additionally, the Rocky Mountain Youth Corps (RMYC) will be working under RCR direction for 7 weeks of trail corridor clearing and tread finish work and the City’s Conservation Youth Corp (CYC) will be working for 4 weeks on trail tread finish work.
The Morning Gloria Trail has been named after the late Gloria Gossard, a longtime Steamboat resident and philanthropist. Much of the trail will be located on land that she donated to the City. The top of the trail is located on top of Emerald Mountain near the Quarry Mountain Trail and will drop down under the Quarry and tie into the Lupine Trail.
For the safety of the public and crews working on site, the trail corridor will be closed to the public until trail construction is complete. For more information, contact Parks, Open Space and Recreation at 970-879-4300.