Mosquito Creek Road

East end was gated at Apex Valley Road. I made the mistake of interpreting it as a private drive so we drove all the way around to Elk Park and entered the North West end. Rookie mistake I guess. My vote that the trail is rated too easy is primarily due to the Rocky section next to the miners Stone house. While it wasn't difficult, it was definitely a rocky climb and worthy of probably a 3 with no way around it. Not sure a stock Cherokee could get through without a little undercarriage scraping. There were maybe four other sections where it was rocky enough to slow down and take it easy; enough to bump the 2 rating to a 3 imo. My lx470 AHC (2 inch lift) and 33s gave me plenty of clearance. I enjoyed following the creek near the Miners Gulch turn off. With all the rain this year and the creek alongside the trail, it provided some nice deep vegetation that seems less common here. There was also a short section with some deep ruts and a bit of wash out. Easy to avoid, but if somebody wasn't careful I could see a tire slipping in and getting pretty good and stuck. This was closer to Elk Park road.

Only ran from WP2 back to Apex, but it was an overly bumpy and boring drive. Still pretty but nothing specific to see. The top half must be a bit more attractive..

From the northern side, the trail is mostly entirely down hill and incredibly rocky (as in your ride on nothing but 6” or larger rocks for 50 yards at a time, sometimes longer). As an adventure motorcyclist, I’d rate it a 4 or 5 for difficulty. If your bike is lacking clearance, DON’T go on this trail. That said, the scenery is beautiful and there’s a stream with occasional cascading waterfalls you can see by going 10 yards into the woods at points.

As of mid May, there is still a decent amount of snow in Mosquito Creek Road. The one-sided distribution of snow can make it difficult for vehicles with open diffs. We turned around after around a third of the trail. We encountered a gate at the beginning that we interpreted as "you are welcome to enter, but stay on the trail".

No review, just wanted to share the conditions as of April 8th at Waypoint 1 (Apex Valley Road): Snow cover with no tracks.

Not plowed and no tracks at the east end (Waypoint 1), should be considered impassable due to the deep snow

On the east end the gate is closed with a PRIVATE PROPERTY sign, which can be confusing. We entered and closed the gate behind us. Nice little trail that runs beside a pretty little stream. Most of the trail is a 2 and a few spots are 3. Recent rains have created some wide washouts. Not much scenery until you get to the top. Fun little trail.

Nice trail for a day outing. I just bought a new Jeep Grand Cherokee Summit and wanted to see what it’s capable of and play with 4wd system. The trail is definitely a 2 for the most part (60%) and a 3 for the remaining. The Grand Cherokee made it to the top with no problems. I put it in Rock Crawl mode for the rougher portions of the trail with the larger rocks,. The trail ruins through the aspen trees alway the way to the top. There was minimal snow on the trail near the top. The grand prize is the view at the top, beautiful snow capped mountains! Follow the trail directions, they are extremely accurate!

Good trail. Hit it the day after a good amount of snow was dumped. Entered from the east trail head off Apex Valley. Plenty of snow that was at least a foot to 2 ft. deep in some areas. Our progress came to an end when we encountered a 4 foot drift. First cabin was pretty neat to see. Just know this trail will cause some pin stripping for wider vehicles as many branches were broken. Bring a saw just incase your rig is too tall to go under some of the fallen/leaning trees. Will return in a couple weeks when the snow has melted to complete the trail.

Made it in about 1 mile from Apex Valley. Wooden bridge missing some boards which may pose problem for vehicles with wide stance. Snow pack/ice on steeper portions. Pinstripes, slidding. Definitely need mud/snow tires.

This is open from end to end. The river is flowing good! There were a few places where the trail gets narrow on the sides and others where taller vehicles might have an issue, but going slow and a careful line will prevent pinstripes for most. There were some smaller rock obstacles that required some navigation around, but for the most part this was an easy trail.

There's still a good foot of snow on the trail

Based on reports from nearby trails, the trail is probably very difficult or impassible due to snow

Stage 3 fire restrictions have been lifted as of 6am, 11/10/20. The forest is no longer fully closed. Areas within fire perimeters remain closed. See closure maps here: https://www.fs.usda.gov/detail/arp/news-events/?cid=FSEPRD844558 Expect winter conditions on trails. Some trails may be impassable due to snow.

Due to extreme fire danger the Ntional Forest Service has temporarily closed all National Forest land in Clear Creek, Jefferson, Gilpin, Boulder, and Larimer counties. https://www.fs.usda.gov/detail/arp/news-events/?cid=FSEPRD831612

All clear. The northernmost water crossing that can sometimes be intimidating as you can't see the full crossing is minimal. This trail is a great "shortcut" from Mammoth Gultch to Yankee Hill area avoiding Kinston Peak but not a scenic trail by any means.

I did not actually run the trail but, based on reports from nearby trails I believe it is open, although you may still encounter some lingering snow drifts.

Only ran the trail from waypoints 1 to 2 and turned off. It is passable for that far, but the snow is getting deep. Don't let all the "private property" signs scare you away. The road is perfectly legal and the local land owners are trying to keep people from traveling a public route.

Trickier than advertised with long sections of steep, loose rock with average sizes around 4". Tires sank 1-3" in the rock, making large obstacles worse than they appear. We ran it downhill, which likely made this worse. Multiple sections with pinstripping. Otherwise beautiful and quiet. Several locals out walking the road yelled at us for being on the trail. I showed them the MVUM but they still insisted they would report my license plate to the police and I should turn around immediately. Just to be clear: this road was MUCH more technical than the nearby mammoth gulch, which we took to connect, and more difficult (we hit our skid plate on 9" of clearance twice) that the yellow rated "rollinsville" route we used to connect from Nederland to mammoth gulch.

Coming from Elk Park Road, we attempted to run the trail in the reverse direction of this guide. 50 yards onto the trail, we buried our Jeeps in giant, soft, snow drifts. The beginning of the trail (per this guide) was snow covered and looked doable at least for a short while, but no idea how big the drifts are back deeper in the trees.

We went up Mosquito Creek from Apex Road on January 27, 2018. The weather was mostly sunny but cool and a little windy. We had four rigs along, my lifted XJ, another lifted XJ, a TJ on 35s and a stock JK. The trail was plowed through the private property at the beginning but once we got past the cabins we were breaking fresh tracks through about six to eight inches of dry powder. The higher we went the deeper the snow got until a little over half a mile in we were having enough difficulty that we decided to turn around. The snow was around two feet deep at that point.

We ran Mosquito Creek on October 21, 2017. It was cold and quite windy with frequent, light snow flurries. There was about an inch of accumulation with conditions on the trail being bare ground to occasional drifts up to about six inches. We started from the Elk Park Road trailhead with intention of connecting to Miners Gulch. We were unable to complete the connection due to a large, fallen tree blocking the road just past (south of) Waypoint 3. We did not have chainsaws and cutting through the large tree would have taken hours with the hand saw and axes we had so we turned around. We took the long way around to the other end of Miners Gulch and ran it the opposite direct from what we had planned. After completing Miners Gulch we took the bottom part of Mosquito Creek out to Apex Valley Road without incident.