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Steamboat Springs — People who enjoy walking, cycling and inline skating on the Yampa River Core Trail could have more of the popular path to explore by late summer or early fall.

City Open Space and Trails Supervisor Craig Robinson said Thursday that construction could begin by July on a 3,054-foot extension of the trail. The work would begin just upstream from the parking lot at River Creek Park, near the stoplight at U.S. Highway 40 and Walton Creek Road, where an existing pedestrian bridge crosses Walton Creek.

The new trail extension would be surfaced with concrete and introduce trail users to a new stretch of the Yampa River via an easement through land controlled by the Mount Werner Water and Sanitation District.

Planning for this extension of the trail began in 2003.

"It's a project we've been working on for quite a few years so it's good to see it moving," Robinson said.

Robinson said grants totaling $467,000, from Great Outdoors Colorado and a Colorado Department of Transportation fund dedicated to multi-modal transit, already are in place.

A soft surface trail exists on the south side of the pedestrian bridge. It runs across an undeveloped commercial lot and then through open space in front of South Side Station convenience store and finally the U.S. Forest Service headquarters.

The trail makes a 90-degree turn before it reaches the parking lot of the Steamboat Hotel - formerly Super 8 - and leads west through a lightly used portion of the parking lot at Walton Pond Apartments before reaching the river.

The existing trail turns right again and heads downstream, but Robinson said the new extension will make a left turn at that point and roughly parallel the river upstream behind the Bunkhouse Lodge, Majestic Valley townhomes and River Place residential subdivision until it reaches Dougherty Road.

Dougherty is a private road at that juncture and the trail dead-ends there.

The most direct public access for people who park at River Creek Park is between the Forest Service office and Steamboat Hotel, Robinson said.

The potential for a further trail extension exists if the city someday approves a proposed mixed residential/commercial development called The Bridges. The developers are seeking annexation of a more than 40-acre property behind Steamboat Christian Center. Riley Polumbus, a spokeswoman for the developers of The Bridges, said in October 2008 that the project affords the opportunity to extend the river trail south toward the city-owned Hay Meadow Ranch (formerly known as Legacy Ranch) at Colorado Highway 131.

That is the limit of the trail as described in the current master plan, Robinson said.

- To reach Tom Ross, call 871-4205 or e-mail tross@steamboatpilot.com