18 Road Just Got Its Last New Trail

On the morning of Saturday, Oct. 10, a couple dozen people stood in the event area parking lot at 18 Road while a yellow ribbon was cut under a cloudy sky. Brian Kittleson helped mark the occasion. The new trail is named for his wife, Kristina Kittleson, a longtime leader and former coordinator of the Colorado Plateau Mountain Bike Trail Association who helped promote cycling across the Grand Valley. After the ribbon came rides on the new trail, and then a dig day, with volunteers carrying tools out to get other 18 Road trails ready for future use.

K2-Play is the final trail in the North Fruita Desert Trails Master Plan, according to the Bureau of Land Management. With it, the plan's roughly 30-mile expansion of the 18 Road system is done. For eight years, the story at 18 Road has been new mileage. That story just ended.

What opened on Oct. 10

K2-Play runs about three miles along the base of the Book Cliffs. Its Trailforks page gives these numbers:

Trailforks describes the trail as advanced, narrow and technical, and lists 2026 as the year it opened. Elevation tells the story. Over three miles the trail only gains about 85 feet net, but it climbs 469 feet in total, so it's a constant up-and-down at the foot of the cliffs. It isn't one long climb followed by a payoff descent. Expect it to ride slower than the distance suggests.

If you followed the project early on, you may know it by another name. When the Colorado Plateau Mountain Bike Trail Association, or COPMOBA, announced the groundbreaking for Saturday, Nov. 16, 2024, it called the route the "P4 Trail."

The crew list shows how 18 Road trails get built these days. The BLM credits volunteer workdays organized by COPMOBA and Volunteers for Outdoor Colorado, along with professional construction by the four-person Mesa County Trail Crew. Mesa County's Trail Program Coordinator also won a Colorado Parks and Wildlife non-motorized trail construction grant, which paid Summit to Sea Trails to build some of the more technical, labor-intensive sections. The Daily Sentinel's coverage of the ribbon cutting named the BLM, COPMOBA and Mesa County as the partners who cut the ribbon.

How 18 Road got here

The "last trail" label only makes sense against how long this system has been changing. These are the milestones the BLM lists in its Oct. 15 account:

1. Early 1990s. Riders begin building many of the original trails and camping areas at 18 Road themselves.
2. 2016. Mesa County gets a Federal Lands Access Program grant to pave 18 Road.
3. 2017. The City of Fruita, COPMOBA, the BLM and local businesses win a Colorado Parks and Wildlife grant to write a trails master plan.
4. 2018 to 2020. A separate environmental review approves new camping and event facilities. Work starts in 2020 on a 3.5-acre gravel parking and event staging area and the lower campground.
5. 2022. The BLM finishes its environmental review of the trails plan, and construction begins.
6. November 2024. Construction starts on K2-Play.
7. Fall 2025. Paving is finished on about seven miles of what the BLM calls a once "bone-jarring gravel road."
8. Oct. 10, 2026. K2-Play opens, and the trails master plan is complete.

The demand behind all of this is on record too. By 2024, the BLM estimated the North Fruita Desert drew about 107,000 visitors a year to roughly 30 miles of singletrack. The plan aimed to do more than add miles. The BLM says it was meant to fix problem areas and spread riders across the system, and the work included rerouting less sustainable trails, adding signs, and restoring routes that were no longer needed. Doubling the mileage was partly a way to keep a busy place from feeling crowded.

What changes at 18 Road now

With the trail plan finished, the next big project is about camping. The BLM calls Phase 4 of the lower campground "the next major piece," a multi-year project that would add about 25 reservable fee sites, including individual sites, a group site and a double-vault toilet. It would turn part of the current dispersed camping into managed sites. The BLM's October account doesn't give a start date. For anyone who has thrown a tent down near 18 Road on a busy spring weekend, this is the change to watch. Over time, more of the area becomes bookable sites with fees and facilities.

With the trail plan complete, the 18 Road trails need upkeep more than they need new construction. The BLM's account is direct about the cost of popularity: "More riders mean more maintenance." Trails erode, corners widen, and riders create paths around hard or muddy sections. In that same BLM post, past COPMOBA president John Howe is quoted from an earlier interview: "We need everyone, from individual trail users to local agencies and government, to contribute to taking care of our trails." Former BLM Outdoor Recreation Planner Chris Pipkin, quoted in the same post from a 2024 interview, said it more simply: "Trails don't just appear on their own."

That's why the Oct. 10 dig day says more about 18 Road's future than the ribbon did. Most of the trail system was built in the last four years. How it rides in 2030 depends mostly on whether new corners get widened and whether muddy sections get braided around.

A short first season on K2-Play

K2-Play opened in mid-October, and the trail calendar at 18 Road changes soon after. COPMOBA lists an annual seasonal closure from Dec. 1 to May 1 for seven North Fruita Desert trails:

• Sarlacc
• Edge Loop
• Skywalker
• Cicada
• Cloud City
• Sarlector
• Lane Mine

K2-Play isn't on that list. Edge Loop is, and it's a different trail from Edge Connector, which K2-Play connects to. COPMOBA also links to a BLM interactive map of seasonal closures, which is the place to check before planning a winter loop that uses any of these names. From this Thursday, that leaves about six weeks to ride the full 18 Road system with its newest trail before parts of it close for five months.

Weather will narrow that window further. COPMOBA's winter riding guide, published in January 2021, notes that 18 Road tends to get and hold more snow than the trail systems in the eastern Grand Valley. The group's current trail ethics are firm: "Do NOT ride on wet trails. If you're leaving tracks, turn back!" They also ask riders to stay on the designated trail, because one careless move off-trail can wipe out cryptobiotic soil that took 50 to 100 years to form. On a brand-new trail that is narrow and technical, the first wet weeks are when riders tend to create bypass lines, and a bypass made this fall could still be there next spring.

On days when the North Fruita Desert is too wet, COPMOBA points riders toward Kokopelli, Lunch Loop, Rabbit Valley and other Grand Valley trail systems.

The trip to the trailhead is also different this year. Last fall's paving means the drive north from Fruita is on about seven miles of paved road instead of washboard gravel. According to the BLM, the campground sits inside the trail system, so riders camping there can reach singletrack within minutes.

The BLM also makes a point about Fruita itself: people who come to ride, camp or attend events at 18 Road eat meals, stay overnight and shop a few miles south in town. Grand Valley residents, meanwhile, get a large public recreation area close to home. As of this fall, the trail network there is finished, though the BLM says campground and visitor-service improvements will keep going as more people use the area. COPMOBA volunteers have helped build and maintain trails on public land for a long time, and the BLM notes that work doesn't stop when construction does.

If you're thinking about a place in Fruita where 18 Road is part of your regular week, or you want to know how being close to the North Fruita Desert affects your own home, we're happy to talk it through. At The Van Gundy Group, we live and work in the Grand Valley, and we'd love to hear what you're looking for. Contact Us.