Devil's Elbow

Rating: 
Round Trip Distance: 1.1 miles
Difficulty: Moderate
MTB Skill level:
Elevation: 7571 - 7706 feet
Cellphone: 3-5 bars
Time: 30 mins.
Trailhead: West Mount Falcon
Fee: none
Attractions: Forest hike/bike

The Devil's Elbow trail is located in the Mount Falcon Park near Morrison, Colorado. The trail begins off of the Old Ute trail where it follows a lollipop loop. It starts out along a wide ridge to where the loop begins. From there it climbs up a hill and around the point of the ridge before looping back to where it began.

To get to the trailhead drive south on Highway 8 from its junction with Highway 74 for 2 miles. Keep right and merge onto Highway 285 and continue for 2.58 miles and turn right onto the Parmalee Gulch Road.  From there simply follow the signs for a little over 1.5 miles to Mount Falcon Park.

The shortest route to where the Devil's Elbow trail begins is to follow the Castle trail for 4 tenths of a mile to the Meadow trail, taking that for a half mile to the Old Ute trail, and continuing for another 2 tenths of a mile to the Devil's Elbow.

The trail starts out losing a little elevation over a gentle grade as it travels between grassy meadows.

Before reaching the quarter mile point the trail splits and begins a loop. For this post we followed the loop in the counterclockwise direction. There were several groups of mountain bikers and other hikers that were doing the same so we decided to go with the flow.

After the fork the trail begins a climb where it gains almost 100 feet of elevation over about 2 tenths of a mile.

There are a couple of rocky spots that are of moderate difficulty for mountain bikers.

The climb is short lived as the trail soon levels off somewhat.

The end of the elbow actually extends past the boundaries of the Mount Falcon Park as it travels around the second point of the hill.

An open area comes up right before the trail begins looping back in the other direction where there are some scenic views off to the southeast.

As the trail loops back it crosses the park boundary once again and completes a nice course around the north side of the hill.

The trail reaches the spot where the loop began and then continues back along the ridge to where it comes to an end at the Old Ute trail. From here it is 1.1 miles back to the trailhead along the south side of the Old Ute trail and 1.3 miles taking the right fork. We're not sure how the trail got the name the Devil's Elbow but it is a nice something extra to do at Mount Falcon Park. If you would like to see it for yourself then all you have to do is grab your bike or 'Take a hike'.