YOUR AD HERE »

Stagecoach State Park now offers snowshoes

State park receives donated equipment, buys trail groomer

Tom Ross

If you go

There is free use of snowshoes at Stagecoach State Park. Call ahead to 970-736-2435 to reserve equipment because the supply is limited. Bring your own snow boots. It’s still necessary to buy a $7 daily pass per car or display an annual parks pass. Snowshoes may be used only at Stagecoach State Park.

If you go

There is free use of snowshoes at Stagecoach State Park. Call ahead to 970-736-2435 to reserve equipment because the supply is limited. Bring your own snow boots. It’s still necessary to buy a $7 daily pass per car or display an annual parks pass. Snowshoes may be used only at Stagecoach State Park.

— Stagecoach State Park near Oak Creek sees about 150,000 visitors annually, but only a relative few come in winter, primarily to ice fish.

Now there’s a new reason to visit the park and the frozen reservoir in winter. The park’s administrative assistant and volunteer coordinator Kimi Lehman wants the public to know that the office has 10 pairs of adult snowshoes available to visitors at no charge.



“The snowshoes were donated to us by Ski Haus” in Steamboat Springs, Lehman said. “And we also have a new trail groomer that we can attach to a snowmobile. Before, we groomed with something we made ourselves with PVC. Now we have a corduroy groomer.”

A car full of six adults could chip in on the $7 daily park pass and have an economical snowshoe outing, Lehman said.



Lehman said she worked with Murray Selleck, of Ski Haus, to acquire the donated snowshoes. Some are used rental equipment, and customers responding to an incentive program dropped others off at the store.

Stagecoach offers six miles of groomed trails circling the reservoir, Lehman said.

The Lake View Trail is two miles long and can be accessed from the Keystone day use area next to the park administration building. Traveling south on Routt County Road 14, watch for a left turn at the sign that says, “Welcome to Stagecoach State Park.”

The four-mile Elk Run Trail is best accessed from the parking area near the intersection of Routt County Roads 14 and 16, or from the parking area on Morrison Cove on the south shore of the lake.

Elk Run periodically is used by dog sled tours — you can check the schedule in the tent in the parking lot on C.R. 16.

Lehman said trail etiquette calls for Nordic skiers to yield to dog sleds and snowshoers to yield to skiers on the 6-foot-wide trails.

— To reach Tom Ross, call 970-871-4205 or e-mail tross@SteamboatToday.com


Support Local Journalism

Support Local Journalism

Readers around Steamboat and Routt County make the Steamboat Pilot & Today’s work possible. Your financial contribution supports our efforts to deliver quality, locally relevant journalism.

Now more than ever, your support is critical to help us keep our community informed about the evolving coronavirus pandemic and the impact it is having locally. Every contribution, however large or small, will make a difference.

Each donation will be used exclusively for the development and creation of increased news coverage.