Living easy, loving free, a season ticket on a one-way ride down Highway to Hell begins Friday. 

Highway to Hell, Emerald Mountain’s newest bike trail, is a 3.2-mile advanced-level downhill directional trail. It includes 27 berms, 11 step-up jumps, 27 rock drops and about 20,000 square feet of rock armoring. 

The trail will start by the radio towers near the Orton property and take riders along the ridge to the quarry before returning them to the Howelsen Hill stables area. This Friday’s opening will include only the lower section from the quarry down, as the upper segment is expected to open later this fall. 

“After years of planning, building and dreaming, we’re shifting from construction to pure exhilaration,” said Parks and Recreation Development Manager Matt Barnard, in a news release. “This trail is like nothing else on Emerald. It’s a fast, technical, high-energy descent built for expert riders — and it delivers.”

In 2022, Routt County Riders met with city staff to discuss the addition of the advanced single-direction track on Emerald. It was a trail type the mountain did not offer at the time. 

After approval through the city process, the project was funded by 2A Trails money in 2023 and discussion with contractors led to the city signing with FlowRide Concepts, the same organization that helped design the NPR (No Pedaling Required) trail a few years ago. 

Highway to Hell’s design was completed and accepted in October 2023 with construction beginning in May 2024. 

The contract with FlowRide Concepts specifies the contractor must follow up in 2026 to repair parts of the trail that have been damaged from its first summer and winter season. 

The trail corridor will be all advanced-level terrain with opportunities to take things to the expert level. 

Because Emerald Mountain has a conservation easement from the quarry to the summit, features cannot be built in that area and only natural terrain can be used. 

To respect the easement, the trail will focus on large switchbacks with berms to keep speeds in check for the first section of the track before features become prominent on the bottom half.

While the naming process for the trail ultimately came down to approval by City Council, a city survey collected input from the community in the spring. The survey collected 1,831 votes that resulted in “Highway to Hell” narrowly beating out “Steamroller” by a 42% to 39% margin. 

“Fault Line” and “Pandemonium” were the other two names chosen by Routt County Riders staff as well as city staff for consideration.