3 5/28/2025 Posted On: 5/28/2025 By: vertical_volume Info: Open and snow free. | 1 |
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9/15/2024 Posted On: 9/15/2024 By: WildWanderer Info: Active bear in area. This truck got broken into when a bear saw a cooler through the window and wanted to see if anything was inside (there wasnt). | 1 |
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8/31/2024 Posted On: 8/31/2024 By: Willy the Kid Info: Don't know why this trailhead is 3/6, it is passable with most vehicles, as previous updates stated. It is at most 2/6. The lot has a decent amount of room with some street parking, but everything was about 80% full by 5 AM today. Get there early so you can get a spot, at least until the labor day crowds let up. | ||||
8/2/2024 Posted On: 8/2/2024 By: HikerGuy Info: 4th of July Road CLOSED Aug. 6 for Maintenance No access to Hessie Trailhead during closure In order to safely and effectively maintain the surface and drainage of the gravel portion of 4th of July Road/CR 130, the roadway will be closed in both directions between the Hessie Trailhead and Shelf Road/the road to Eldora ski area from 6:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. on Tuesday, Aug. 6. Access to residents of Eldora will be maintained. The hard closure will be located at the west side of Eldora where the pavement ends and gravel road begins. View a map of the construction area. Due to a confined work zone, no motor vehicles, bicycles, or pedestrians/hikers will be allowed through the construction area while work is being performed. | 1 |
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6/3/2024 Posted On: 6/3/2024 By: Logan5280 Info: Road is open and plowed all the way to the summer trailhead. There are some puddles that may be a bit challenging for a low clearance car, but the road is in good shape otherwise. | 4 |
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11/30/2023 Posted On: 11/30/2023 By: blockingthesky Info: The gate was open when I arrived today at 1PM to the Hessie parking area and Fourth of July Road junction. I drove carefully about 300 yards up the road over packed snow before turning back towards Hessie after considering the time of day. Turned out to be a good move - when I returned from Lost Lake to the Hessie area around 4PM, the Fourth of July Road access gate had been closed, and a fella, his dogs, and his 4Runner were trapped behind it. A Ranger came and rescued him after I drove out a bit and sent out the call. I spoke to the fella later on: apparently the gate wasnt closed by a Parks official; it was secured with a dummy lock. The Ranger speculated that a local had taken them upon themselves to close it. So, the gate is still open, for now - but looking at the 3 days of incoming snow, our gate-closing rogue agent may have been onto something. (That said, I do hope that its standard practice for Parks to make sure nobodys got a vehicle behind an access gate before closing it for the season, especially if theres no cell service/callbox onsite!) | ||||
9/25/2023 Posted On: 9/25/2023 By: drummerjohn Info: Road was a little rough but I was able to make it with a Sonata driving carefully with some occasional scraping. Several areas I had to slow down and pick a good line. | ||||
9/24/2023 Posted On: 9/24/2023 By: colingoodman Info: Apparently this trailhead is wildly popular. I drove up for the Arapaho traverse only to get turned away due to the parking lot being full and there being a 90 minute wait time for a spot. Not only that, the overflow area was very crowded with the school parking lot being full and many cars parked along the highway. Not sure if this is just a fall foliage thing but beware of this and get here earlier than I did (9am on an autumn Sunday) | 1 |
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8/27/2023 Posted On: 8/27/2023 By: poseidon Info: Road to trailhead was not muddy at all and easy enough to navigate even in my 2WD Prius with 6" of ground clearance. Got there at around 6:10 with the upper lot mostly full, but found plenty of spaces along the side of the road. Coming back down at around noon there were a few cars headed up, so be prepared to yield. Overall less challenging than I expected! | ||||
6/10/2023 Posted On: 6/10/2023 By: Cereal Info: Road is completely dry and in great shape. I got my Corolla to the TH no problem. | ||||
5/27/2023 Posted On: 5/27/2023 By: 123tqb Info: It's open again! The road is completely dry all the way to the parking lot. | ||||
7/23/2022 Posted On: 8/1/2022 By: CarpeDM Info: Apparently, when the Hessie and Fourth of July TH parking lots are full, they're now closing the road and running shuttles from the high school. I found this out 7/23/22. Hiking something up there was going to be my Plan B when Plan A fell through. I arrived at the closure just before 7am to find that even the high school parking lot was nearly full. I was told that shuttles run about every 20 minutes. (I went to Plan C.) | ||||
11/19/2021 Posted On: 11/19/2021 By: markf Info: On Wednesday, 11/17, I was able to get to the trailhead in a Honda Civic with good snow tires. Quite a bit of bare ground, and limited clearance was not a big problem. | ||||
11/19/2021 Posted On: 11/19/2021 By: markf Info: Winter access for this trailhead is at the Hessie Rd and Fourth of July Road split (39.951572762098884, -105.5950280484135), about 4 miles below the big parking lot and Buckingham Campground. This is also the 2WD option for the Hessie trailhead in summer. The road to this point is 2WD dirt, and is well maintained in winter, although snow tires or chains are frequently necessary for 2WD vehicles. This area is very heavily used in winter by snowshoers and XC skiers. | ||||
7/29/2021 Posted On: 7/29/2021 By: ccerling Info: FYI. There are road signs up indicating that 4th of July Road will be closed on Tuesday 8/3 with no access in or out for resurfacing work. https://www.fs.usda.gov/recarea/arp/recarea/?recid=28264 |
