Smuggler Mountain Trail is a 14 mile heavily trafficked out and back trail located near Aspen, Colorado that features a lake and is rated as difficult. The trail offers a number of activity options and is best used from March until September. Dogs are also able to use this trail.
Colorado Tourism Office, 1625 Broadway, Suite 1700 , Denver, CO, 80202, Phone: 800-COLORADO
Directions from Aspen: Travelling east on Main Street in Aspen, turn left (north) onto Mill Street. Travel 1/4 mile and turn right after the bridge onto Gibson. Follow Gibson 1/8 mile to a Y intersection and bear left onto South Avenue. Shortly, turn right onto Park Circle and follow for 1/8 mile to the Smuggler Mountain Road on the left. There is parking on the right.
Alk by myself. Had to park lower parking. Was in a hurry because I have a hair appointment
This trail was a bit harder than I expected. It is pretty much up hill all the way up to the viewing observatory. AMAZING views of Aspen and surrounding mountains that makes it worth it - also love it for the workout it gives you. We chose to continue a bit further on the BTS trail (only less than a mile further up) and it provided a less steep and more secluded walk, filled with beautiful trees and shades. Next time will try to continue onto the lake but that makes it a total hike of 10+ miles rather than the 4-5 miles we clocked in. Also very convenient location right off downtown Aspen. Nice ice cream stop at the bottom - just to make the end all very sweet and refreshing!
Beginning is wide-open fire road and after the look-out/observatory it get much steeper and very rocky. We were in a time crunch so we didn’t quite make it all the way to the lake (about a mile away) so we turned around and got down to the bottom which was all in all about 10.5 miles, 3.5 total moving hrs for us. You will encounter a good amount of people at the beginning to the observatory but after that there wasn’t anyone except some dirt bikes (moto). Also had mountain bikes further below.