Mitchell Creek Trail

This moderately difficult hiking trail starts its accent at the Glenwood Springs Fish Hatchery. This beautiful trail has so many features, you’ll have a blast taking it all in.

Mitchell Creek Trail is the only hiking trail that connects Flat Tops plateau directly to the town of Glenwood Springs, offering a scenic six-mile bottom-to-top hike that gains around 4,000 feet in elevation. The trail, often next to the rushing stream, proceeds up a steep-sided valley, in places heavily wooded, crowned with rock palisades on both sides. Probably because of its southern exposure and mid-level elevation, Mitchell Creek Trail passes through what appears to be a jumble of biotic zones, its lower reaches populated by douglas fir, Gambel oak, and ponderosa pine, with cottonwood-lined streambanks, and thickets of chokecherry, raspberry, willows, and other shrubs. Wildflowers are numerous in spring and summer, and large clumps of red columbine are found along the trail.