3 Miles One Way 8500-8700 Elevation

You can be one of the first to hike this beautiful trail through the hill country of the Florissant Fossil Beds. It was put in in 1998 and hardly anyone knows about it yet, even though it's the most interesting trail in the park.

This trail requires special care since its eastern end crosses private land. The land owner has given his enthusiastic permission, but the National Monument doesn't have a legal easement at this time.

Starting from the east trailhead, the trail immediately heads into a valley of rock formations. They're not huge but there's a lot of them. After a half mile the trail passes under the southern Twin Rock, a one hundred foot monster that dominates the valley. It has a great photo spot a hundred yards to the west.

A litle later, the trails passes into a wide meadow bordered by a berm that appears to be the reminents of an old reservoir. This beautiful spot of grassy hills and forest, is more like the Kentucky hill country than Colorado, but it's typical of the Fossil Beds.

The trail keeps following the creek to the west and at mile 1.5 makes a hard turn south at a foot bridge built just last year. After another half mile the Twin Rocks Trail ends at a fork, with the Hornbek Loop to the west and the Shooting Star Trail to the south. The Hornbek follows a hilly meadow a half mile to the road where it's a four mile drive back to the east trailhead.

Going south from the fork, the Shooting Star follows the edge of the forest along the hillside for about a mile. The big meadows that are so common in the Fossil Beds open up the landscape to great views of the mountains to the west. The trail ends at the Barksdale Picnic Area where I jumped on my bike for a short ride back to the east trailhead.

The Barksdale Picnic area is on Lower Twin Rocks Road, about a mile east of Teller One. It closes at 7:00 in summer and 4:30 otherwise. To find the east trailhead, drive a mile east of Barksdale then turn left on Manchester then left again on Kingston. Drive a hundred yards and park at the wide spot above the pond.