ride
Green Mountain: The Hayden, Green Mountain, and Rooney Valley Loop
An eight-mile Lakewood loop linking the John Hayden, Green Mountain, and Rooney Valley trails: loose rock, zero shade, plenty of company, and the rare local trail you can legally ride after dark.
- Date
- 2026-07-26
- Region
- Colorado
- Country
- USA
- Distance
- 8.3 mi
- Elevation gain
- 912 ft
- Elevation range
- 6041–6728 ft
- Technical difficulty
- Intermediate
Some rides are about getting away from the city.
This one is not. This one is about the city letting you ride a little longer than the rest of the Front Range will.
Green Mountain is that big grassy hump on the west side of the Denver metro, and this is an eight-mile loop around and over it that strings together three trails: the John Hayden Trail, the Green Mountain Trail, and the Rooney Valley Trail. Call it eight miles and about 900 feet of climbing.
It is one of many ways to ride Green Mountain. It happens to be the way I rode it. More Green Mountain routes are coming, because there are a lot of them.
It Is Not Golden, It Is Lakewood
Everyone lumps Green Mountain in with the Golden foothills.
It sits right next to all of it, it looks like all of it, and it is loose and dry and rocky like all of it. So the assumption is understandable.
It is also wrong.
Green Mountain is officially William Frederick Hayden Park on Green Mountain, and it is managed by the City of Lakewood, not Jefferson County Open Space. Same dirt, different landlord.
That distinction sounds like trivia until you look at the hours.
You Can Actually Ride It at Night
Jefferson County Open Space closes about an hour after sunset. Once the sun is down, you are technically not supposed to be out there.
Lakewood parks stay open until 10 p.m.
Which means Green Mountain is one of the few local spots where you can legally clip a light on and go ride in the dark. Not all night, and not around the clock, but a real evening lap well after the JeffCo trails have officially shut down.
On a hot summer day, that is not a novelty. That is the whole strategy. You wait for the sun to drop, you show up with a light, and you ride the loop when it is finally bearable.
The Route
I started on the west side, over near Rooney Road, and rode the loop clockwise. Either direction works, and so do about a dozen other combinations. This is just the one I did.
Most of the mileage is on the John Hayden Trail, which does the bulk of the work getting you up and around. The Green Mountain Trail handles the middle, including the wide, exposed stretch across the top. The Rooney Valley Trail and its connector bring you back down toward where you parked.
The signs are green, they are frequent, and they name every trail and junction. If you can read a sign that says Green Mountain Trail and points both ways, you can ride this loop. There is not much route-finding to do.
Loose Rock, All of It
The defining feature of Green Mountain is loose rock.
Not embedded ledges, not a rock garden you session. Just an endless supply of small loose stuff sitting on top of firm dirt, waiting to roll under your tire at the exact moment you ask the bike to do something specific.
It rewards looking ahead and picking a line early. It punishes grabbing a fistful of brake mid-corner. On a single speed you learn quickly to carry momentum through the loose sections rather than fighting for traction you do not have.
None of it is scary. All of it wants your attention.
No Shade, None
There are no trees.
I want to be clear about that, because people hear "eight-mile loop" and picture a forest somewhere in the middle of it. There is no forest. There is no shaded drainage. There is no cool spot to regroup.
It is grassland and sky from the parking lot to the summit and back.
In the middle of the day in July, that is a problem. Bring more water than you think eight miles requires, and ride it early or ride it late. This is exactly the loop the 10 p.m. closing time was made for.
You Will Have Company
Green Mountain is busy.
It is close to the city, it is open late, and it is popular with everyone. Trail runners, hikers, dog walkers, mountain bikers, e-bikes, more e-bikes. On the weekends the parking lot fills up and the trail stays that way.
This is not a quiet backcountry loop where you might see three people. This is a shared front-range open space, and you should ride it like one.
Yield to people on foot. Slow down around dogs. Announce yourself before you come around a blind corner on a loose descent. You are going to be passing and getting passed, and none of it is worth ruining someone's walk over.
One of Many
This is one loop.
Green Mountain has enough trail to build a dozen different rides, and I intend to ride most of them, so consider this the first entry rather than the definitive one. Longer, shorter, more climbing, less, the pieces are all up there to rearrange.
But as a starting point it is a good one. Eight miles, real climbing, loose rock to keep you honest, and the one thing almost no other trail near here offers: permission to ride it after dark.
- colorado
- lakewood
- green-mountain
- hayden-park
- mountain-bike
- single-speed
- night-riding