{"id":25487,"date":"2024-10-03T21:18:12","date_gmt":"2024-10-04T03:18:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/forest-service-reestablishes-hermosa-creek-trail-after-2022-mudslides\/"},"modified":"2026-03-30T23:18:54","modified_gmt":"2026-03-31T05:18:54","slug":"forest-service-reestablishes-hermosa-creek-trail-after-2022-mudslides","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/forest-service-reestablishes-hermosa-creek-trail-after-2022-mudslides\/","title":{"rendered":"Forest Service reestablishes Hermosa Creek Trail after 2022 mudslides"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\"The
The San Juan National Forest announced the reestablishment of the Hermosa Creek Trail, which runs from the Lower Hermosa Trailhead toward Purgatory. Fallen trees and mudslides had made the route difficult for bikers and horses to pass. (Courtesy of San Juan National Forest)<\/span>cca<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

The San Juan National Forest announced Wednesday that the Hermosa Creek Trail, which runs from the Lower Hermosa Trailhead northwest wrapping up behind Purgatory Resort, has been rerouted, rehabilitated and reestablished.<\/p>\n

Forest managers never actually closed the trail, SJNF spokeswoman Lorena Williams said in an email to The Durango Herald.<\/em> But severe damage from the 416 Fire in 2018 left downed trees across many parts of the trail, and 2022 landslides left a 30-foot deep hole in a section of the trail.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was just very difficult or impossible to pass for horses, motorcycles, and cyclists,\u201d Williams said.<\/p>\n

The trail, which connects upper and lower Hermosa, is a single-track pathway open to hikers, horse riders, mountain bikers and motorcyclists.<\/p>\n

Over two months this summer, about 25 people put in a total 2,700 hours of work to reroute a quarter-mile section of the trail around the blowout and removed over 200 downed trees, according to an SJNF news release. Trail crews had to use livestock to transport materials, gear, food and fuel 10 miles to the site of the blowout.<\/p>\n

\"The
The San Juan National Forest announced the reestablishment of the Hermosa Creek Trail, which runs from the Lower Hermosa Trailhead toward Purgatory. Landslides in 2022 left a 30-foot hole in a section of the trail, which had to be rerouted. (Courtesy of San Juan National Forest)<\/span>cca<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

The lower trailhead sits northwest of Hermosa off County Road 201 and Forest Service Road 576 in the Hermosa Creek Special Management Area <\/a>created by Congress and President Barack Obama in 2014. Much of the area was damaged by the high-intensity 416 Fire, which incinerated 54,000 acres of forest.<\/p>\n

\u201cDead snags will continue to fall across the trail, and San Juan NF employees and volunteer groups are working out plans to revisit the trail system on a regular basis,\u201d the release says. \u201cRecreationists should be cautious when traveling through a burned area, especially in high winds or during heavy rain, and should be prepared for additional trees across the trail.\u201d<\/p>\n

rschafir@durangoherald.com<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Quarter mile of single-track had to be rerouted after slides<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":25488,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[2838,28,884,199],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-25487","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-416-fire","tag-headlines","tag-hermosa","tag-san-juan-national-forest"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25487","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=25487"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25487\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":78959,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25487\/revisions\/78959"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/25488"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=25487"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=25487"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=25487"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=25487"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}