Cross Creek Trail is a 25.5 mile moderately trafficked out and back trail located near Minturn, Colorado that features a lake and is rated as difficult. The trail offers a number of activity options and is best used from June until October. Dogs are also able to use this trail but must be kept on leash.
SEASONAL ROAD CLOSURE: Roads leading to this trailhead are subject to seasonal closure. For more information, please visit https://www.fs.usda.gov/alerts/whiteriver/alerts-notices. Trail starts on ridge, then drops down to Cross Creek. There is a bridge and meadow. See Mount of the Holy Cross after a 2 mile hike in. It's a long hike to the lakes, 11 and 13 miles. Near the end of trail open meadows with wildflowers. Near the end is Treasure Vault Lake. Cross Creek is in the Holy Cross Wilderness. This is a long hike one way and many spots for camping.
Two small parking lots
Colorado Tourism Office, 1625 Broadway, Suite 1700 , Denver, CO, 80202, Phone: 800-COLORADO
January 3, 2021December 6, 2020A LOT of downed trees after about 2.5 miles and you’ll lose the trail. Views of Vail and Notch Mountain, glimpse of Mount Holy Cross, but that’s only what I encountered on my 3.5 miles in. Even though I had the map, I did not feel like navigating anymore through that mess, pretty rough out there. Nice day though. Hiked on 12/6, about 11 miles round trip with hiking the road to the trailhead since it is closed. Will hike again when clear.
November 28, 2020Hiked it 11/28 with traction and poles. Glad I had them. Not enough snow to snowshoe but icy in a lot of spots. Only went to the first lake. The road is closed a mile from the trailhead. From the gate, it was 4 miles to the lake- gorgeous scenery- forest, the creek, mountains, frozen lake and great views of Notch.
November 6, 2020This trail was extremely icy today. It is a meandering trail up and down. Absolutely beautiful scenery and a charming bridge. You will enjoy this a lot more with crampons or something to navigate the icy path. Trekking stick would help as well. Overall fun and extremely challenging with the ice.
September 26, 2020Trail is gorgeous this time of year but, as a result, SUPER crowded. We only did a couple of miles, but conditions were nice and views were great. Saw at least a dozen other groups. Would wait to do it again until late spring when there are fewer people on the trail.
September 16, 2020Beautiful trail; however, as Rachel mentioned the trail is completely blocked about a mile North of Lake Harvey. I did this trail coming down from Missouri Pass and met the field of blowdown and thought I had to turn around but eventually found a way around by climbing over logs and staying next to the creek. Google earth shows the blowdown area. Also multiple trees are down from the September snowfall along the upper trail making it difficult.
August 26, 2020Beautiful. Started early 8am lots of parking saw no one til return.
August 24, 2020Trail is completely blocked about a mile north of Harvey Lake. Looks like an avalanche or something came through there, leaving hundreds of downed trees. Trail up to that point is lovely . Some rough blow-downs, but we were able to make it through with our dogs until we had to turn around. Lovely camping spot right next to the meadow about 5 miles in. Tons of water. We only saw three other people over two and a half days past about the 4 mile mark.
August 2, 2020Good trail- beautiful and forested with lots of water, but some blowdown that makes it easy to lose the trail at times. Pretty overgrown in places too. But our amazing campsite near the river made up for it!
July 19, 2020A beautiful well maintained trail! Tons of wildflowers and raspberries! Monkshood at least 5’ tall in places! Went early and didn’t see too many people going up. By the time we came down there were lots of families and dogs! Great to see children enjoying nature!
July 16, 2020Aimed for Surprise Lake, ended up hiking over a mile past it. Half a dozen trees laying across the trail that need to be stepped over. Liberally sprayed myself with bug spray at the start of the hike & didn't notice any bugs. Found 1 bite afterwards. 8.3 miles / 3 hours 20 minutes / ~850' elevation change / 1:1 ratio dogs:humans (4 each).
July 11, 2020This trail was recommended by Minturn Anglers as a place we could do an easy hike and fish with our two kids under the age of 10. We went almost 2 miles, then turned around and came back to about .75 miles where there is a couple beaver ponds. We hung out here for hours. Playing on the rocks, fishing (no luck), reading, playing in the water. It was beautiful. Regret that we didn’t hike more of the trail, but after a month of COVID summer hiking, kids are over it. The trail was awesome. Highly recommend. With big spray.
July 6, 2020It is a pretty trail but mosquitos are out of control. I had on bug spray and long sleeves/pants and still got heavily bitten up. These mosquitos apparently have no problem biting right thru your clothes. It was so bad that we couldn’t even stop for more than 30 seconds to take in the views because we just got swarmed. The trail is also very heavily trafficked despite the severe insect problem. So expect to meet lots of people as well as mosquitos if you go.
June 27, 2020We did an overnight backpacking trek 6/27-6/28, stopping just past Harvey Lake to camp in the beautiful meadowlands. From the trailhead, we went about 15 miles out. It's absolutely gorgeous, with views of Holy Cross most of the way. We walked down into the river valley, through lush meadows, up onto rocky hillsides, through the woods, and ended up in a marshy and pristine valley. The trail is very well-maintained, a lot of ups and downs (all told, we recorded over 6,000 feet of elevation gain from start to finish). True to form, you end up crossing about a million creeks on your way, so don't wear shoes you want to keep pristine. Around mile 10 we encountered a huge blowdown, likely from an avalanche. We prevailed and made our way through the wreckage, but it was treacherous. Lots of mosquitos, so definitely bring bug spray. We saw a moose early on our second morning! All in all, a wonderful trip.
June 14, 2020We chose this hike after googling Hikes for Families in Vail; we are a family of 4 with two kiddos, age 10 and 13. Our plan was to hike 1+ mile in to the bridge and perhaps a little farther to the pond, for an easy, pleasant, couple hour hike through the woods. Unfortunately, the road to the trail head is closed resulting in a 1.4 mile trek uphill on a fairly exposed road. We persevered. The hike itself, once you get to the trailhead, is great and quite easy. It is somewhat exposed with patches of shade here and there which made it doable and pleasant on a sunny day. They were a few mosquitos in the deeply wooded parts. The river at the bridge in June was VERY full and powerful and a great place to stop for a snack etc. Overall, we enjoyed, however, the road closure was a bummer.
September 26, 2019We did 4 miles in today, about a mile past the little lake, which is more like a pond with cool marsh-type grasses. Beautiful trail. Nice mix of level, ups, and downs. There were some beautiful views of aspen stands, evergreens, meadows, mountains, and the creek. The Fall colors were going wild! Love it.
September 24, 2019starting at martin Creek trail ascending almost to 11k with beautiful views of holy Cross and other sawatch range peaks then descending on grouse mountain trail for about .7 miles to cross Creek trail then followed that all the way to it's end at 17.4 miles at the junction of Missouri lakes trail and fancy pass trail, then turn around and follow Cross Creek all the way to minturn. loads of moose on this hike and a bit of talk of bears out there great hike but plenty of work to be done for the beautiful scenery.
September 22, 2019About 10 miles in the trail is blocked due to many fallen trees. There appears to have been a landslide or other natural disaster that completely leveled the whole forest for about 200 feet. We could not find the trail on the other side and elected to turn back, but you could pick up the trail further upstream if you want. Otherwise, be wary of the elevation gain: the terrain is very up-and-down so even if you're not going in too far you may be gaining more elevation than you think.
September 18, 2019Beautiful trail, lots of shade.
August 18, 2019Hiked it two weeks ago. In good shape. We started at near the fitness center to avoid crowded trail head
August 5, 2019
