This weekend, Howelsen Hill's parking lot fills before 7 a.m. Racers pin numbers, top off water bottles, and clip in for the Emerald Mountain Epic, the two-day trail race known for years as the Steamboat Stinger before its rebrand, now raising money for Routt County Riders and Partners for Youth. Ninety percent singletrack, the organizers say. A hundred percent dirt. Most of that dirt is on Emerald Mountain, the ridge of forest and rock that climbs up from the edge of downtown.
If you've ridden Emerald more than a handful of times, you already know it has two personalities. What's less obvious, even to people who ride it every week, is that those two personalities aren't decided by the trail builders. They're decided by a property line drawn years before anyone poured concrete for a jump.
Two Descents, One Mountain, Very Different Rules
Emerald's front side belongs to the city of Steamboat Springs, which maintains a network of more than two dozen miles of non-motorized trail on it. For most of that network's life, the fastest way down was NPR, short for No Pedaling Required, a one-way run built between Blackmere Drive and the Orton property line. It's flowy and forgiving, strung with man-made berms and tabletops, and true to its name: once you're rolling, you coast the whole way.
Highway to Hell is the other one. It opened in stages starting in the summer of 2025, first the lower section from the quarry down, then the upper segment that fall. It's rated advanced to expert, and the numbers back that up.
| Trail | Direction | Skill Level | Signature Features |
|---|---|---|---|
| NPR (No Pedaling Required) | One-way, Blackmere Drive to Orton property line | Beginner to intermediate | Man-made berms and tabletops built for flow |
| Highway to Hell | One-way, radio towers past the quarry to Howelsen Hill stables | Advanced to expert | 27 berms, 11 step-up jumps, 27 rock drops, and about 20,000 square feet of rock armoring |
Riders who've done both usually describe Highway to Hell as consistently hard from top to bottom. It isn't. The top half and bottom half were built to two completely different rulebooks, and the rulebook changes at one specific point on the mountain: the quarry.
The Line the Easement Drew
Emerald Mountain carries a conservation easement running from the quarry up to the summit. Inside that boundary, builders can't construct features at all. They can only work with what's already there. So the upper stretch of Highway to Hell relies on large switchbacks and berms carved from natural terrain, engineered to keep speeds in check rather than to launch you off anything. It's only once the trail drops below the quarry, outside the easement, that the rock drops and step-up jumps start showing up.
That means the hardest riding on Steamboat's newest expert trail doesn't start at the summit. It starts exactly where a decades-old land protection line ends. Anyone who's dropped in expecting the whole run to feel like the bottom half, or expecting the top to ease them in the way NPR does, has felt that seam without knowing what caused it.
Built Fast Because It Was Already on the List
Ask Routt County Riders how Highway to Hell came together and you get a version of surprise that's rare in trail advocacy circles.
"We're all blown away by how quickly it happened."
That's Craig Frithsen, Routt County Riders' board president. The trail went from formal approval to a fully open run in just under two years, which is fast by local trail-building standards. The reason has less to do with the trail itself and more to do with paperwork. Highway to Hell had already been named in Emerald Mountain's master plan as one of two planned one-way descents, one green and one black, sitting on land the city already owned. That meant it was pre-qualified for funding through Steamboat's 2A program, the trails-dedicated lodging tax voters approved back in 2013 with 71 percent support, a pot that's put more than $5 million toward trail projects over the following decade. The $350,000 build, done by FlowRide Concepts, only needed sign-off from the city manager, the Parks and Recreation Commission, and City Council.
Compare that to Mad Rabbit, the trail network the same advocacy group has been chasing on Rabbit Ears Pass. Its funding traces back to the same 2013 vote, it drew organized opposition from a group called Keep Routt Wild by 2018, it required a full Forest Service environmental assessment, and volunteers didn't break ground until National Public Lands Day in September 2025, with the first completed trails expected to be ready to ride sometime this summer. Same funding source, same advocacy group, same county. The difference is that Highway to Hell sat entirely on city land already zoned for exactly this use. Mad Rabbit sits on national forest, where the review clock runs on a different calendar entirely.
What's True on the Mountain Right Now
Highway to Hell's contract with FlowRide Concepts includes a clause requiring the builder to come back this year and repair sections damaged during the trail's first full summer and winter of use. If you notice fresh rock work on the lower section this month, that's the reason. First-season wear on a trail with that much armoring and that many jump lines isn't a sign of poor construction. It's the expected cost of a black diamond descent absorbing its first year of real traffic.
The rest of the mountain had a slower start to the season than usual. A trail report from early May flagged downed trees still on Emerald and the Beall trail closed until July 1. By July 2, the frontside network showed clear across Trailforks, though the backside carried a caution flag as of July 9, which tracks with how that side typically dries out later given less sun exposure and a rougher tread. None of this is unusual for Emerald. In wetter years, the city has gone as far as closing the entire network except Blackmere while things dry out, as it did in the spring of 2023, since foot and tire traffic on soft ground sets ruts that erode for seasons afterward.
The Calendar That Bookends the Season
Emerald's race calendar tells you almost everything about how the mountain gets used across a summer.
- Emerald Mountain Epic, August 8 and 9: presented by Hard Headed, capped near 500 racers per day to limit trail impact, with half and full trail marathon distances and proceeds split between Routt County Riders and Partners for Youth.
- Emerald Mountain Trail Run, October 3: a 12k that runs closer to 7.75 miles and a 4-mile option, starting at Olympian Hall by Howelsen Hill, open to hikers in the 12k, closing out the Steamboat Springs Running Series points season.
Both races are fundraisers, and both point back to the same handful of local organizations that keep the trail network funded and maintained between city budget cycles. The mountain isn't just recreation infrastructure. It's also the backbone of a fairly small nonprofit ecosystem that depends on people showing up twice a year to run or ride it competitively.
Riding It This Month
For anyone treating Emerald as a regular after-work loop rather than a race course, the practical takeaway is simple. NPR still gives you the coast-the-whole-way descent it always has, accessible from Blackmere Drive. Highway to Hell gives you a legitimately different experience above and below the quarry, so if you're introducing a strong intermediate rider to it, don't judge their readiness by the bottom half alone. The Blackmere trailhead off Routt Street remains the most direct frontside access point, and the Howelsen Hill stables area is where most Highway to Hell laps end, part of the same trailhead complex hosting this weekend's Epic.
None of this changes with a real estate transaction. It's simply what's true on the mountain right now, for the people who already live close enough to ride it on a Tuesday.
If you're weighing a move to a part of Steamboat Springs where a trailhead is a five-minute walk instead of a drive, the Shelley Stanford Team knows which neighborhoods actually deliver that and which ones just advertise it. Reach out when you're ready to talk through the map in person.
