Rainbow Falls Park is on Highway 67, out of Woodland Park. It's a short, easy ride from Woodland Park, about 15 minutes drive out of town (it's a full service town, 24hour Wal-Mart, gas stations, food, and of course a Polaris dealer if you own one of those). This is the sort of image people have when you say "Rocky Mountains".

All along highway 67 are campgrounds in Pike National Forest. It's a gorgeous drive to reach, and the main parking area is large, easily accomodating a couple dozen trucks and trailers.

But the main trail in the system is open to trucks and you will find people camping up in the hills. So bring your camper and stay for a couple days. This also means that it's a popular spot for night riding, if you have headlights on your machine.

Most trails are pretty easy. Most are easy to maintain some speed on. A 2WD sport quad could handle most of the trails here, with only a couple really requiring 4WD, and fewer places still that require a LO range.

Trails are well thought out, and offer speedy blasts in sand and up and downhill, then transition into some slower rocky areas or tight winding areas. Some of the trails (such as 350A and 350B) offer more techincal challenges and even some hardcore rock crawling if you're equipped for it. However, these hardcore areas can be bypassed if your machine isn't designed more that kind of crawling, so there's no reason to avoid any one trail if you have 2WD.

There is no real water or mud to speak of. In CO, many parks and trails are closed during wet weather due to flash flooding concerns. So generally it'll be dry and somewhat dusty on the trails.

Rainbow Falls is broken into two riding areas. The main area is mountainous and has sweeping elevation changes. The other area is behind some cattle gates. You can ride there, but the signs ask only that you shut the gate after going through. There are cattle grazing in the area, so keeping the gates shut is for their safety.

This lower area is higher speed and open. Several humps allow some air under the tires. Sport quads would probably be more in their element here. Less total trail, but it runs through the Hayman Burn Area. Colorado's largest forest fire.

It's almost eerie to ride among miles of dead trees. You can see the burn in every direction. Just shows the power of forest fires. If not a technical ride, it's still interesting to see.

Overall Rainbow Falls Park is a great riding area. I bring my daughter with her Arctic Cat 90 and so far have only needed to rescue her one time, in deep sand on a hill. Although I avoid the hardest trails with her along, her machine proves quite capable there. I doubt any trail or even part of a trail becomes what I'd call Intermediate difficulty.

It's not just the trail difficulty though. Rainbow Falls is gorgeous. One trail leads you along a couple miles of low elevation Aspen groves, shimmering in the sun. It's post card quality scenery and from high in the hills, Pike's Peak is plainly visible. Bring your camera!

Being one of the closest ATV trail systems to where I live, I am at Rainbow Falls fairly frequently, maybe I'll see you there!

 

You could say this place is my second home. I live to ride here and North Divide on my Raptor!

 

North Divide is my next ride report. Was going to go there today but I got called to help a friend in town. I'll be out of the state for a month so I won't be riding till mid-summer, but when I do North Divide is my next target.

You could do up a ride report. Save me from doing it. Although I'll do one anyway when I get back.

I've been in the area with 4x4 trucks, but that was before the Hayman fire and the closing of Hackett, Longwater, and Cheeseman. I think Metberry is still open, but I haven't been out there much since the fire. We outlawed Hackett Gulch one day, and it's perfect. Can't understand why it's still closed.

But I've never taken a quad in the area.

 

I would love to do ride report but I am a horriable writer and speller so I think I will leave that one up to you (sorry) but I will tell you that metberry was reopend back up late last year. The 4x4 clubs allong w/ usfs did allot of work to reopen it and the did a very good job at that. It was one of the first places I took the 700r after bying it and is still on of my favorite roads/4x4 trails that I have riden with it!

 

Shhhhhhhhh !!! Do not tell all of our riding areas ! [img]i/expressions/face-icon-small-happy.gif[/img]