Jack’s / Columbine Loop

Decided to take advantage of a nice day to do another Cheyenne Canyon area hike. This one incorporates some trails on the North side of the Canyon that even cross over into the neighboring Bear Creek Canyon. A nice loop, with some caveats (see below). I’d recommend doing this counter-clockwise if on foot, clockwise if on a bike. There are many nice views to be had of Cheyenne Mountain, Colorado Springs, Cheyenne Canyon, and at least one place where you can see Pikes Peak.

The route: to get to the trailhead, go up Gold Camp Road to where it turns to dirt. Continue on to just before the first tunnel where you will see a parking lot to the right. Park there, and take the trail out of the back of the lot:

The trail proceeds mostly uphill until you reach High Drive at something like 2.3 miles. At High Drive head South (back down into Cheyenne Canyon).

At the bottom of High Drive you reach a parking lot. Across the road that enters the lot you will find the trailhead for the top of Columbine Trail.

Head downhill on Columbine until you get to the intersection with Spring Creek that will branch off (and uphill) to the left. At the top of Spring Creek you will find yourself back on Gold Camp Road, just uphill from the parking lot where you started.

Strava tracked this as roughly 6.8 miles with ~1150 feet of vertical: https://www.strava.com/activities/6571674308/embed/6e00169715c3949d536059aed182656b50c265a0

Notes and Cautions: The biggest thing to be aware of is that the first part of this hike climbs up a very popular trail for downhill mountain biking. Don’t wear headphones and maintain awareness of where you could move to if a biker happened to be overriding their sight lines and/or brakes and came around a corner unexpectedly. Most riders it won’t be an issue, but caution is still warranted. As with most hikes, you may encounter snow/ice in the winter.

Variations: For a longer hike, you can cross High Drive and continue up to the Mount Buckhorn trail (on your left). Take that back down to Gold Camp Road, and that downhill to meet up with Columbine at the parking lot. An even longer variant involves hiking all the way to Jones Park then down 7 Bridges Trail (which also ends on Gold Camp Road, so continue as above).