Trails weave throughout the town of Dillon. That includes the recpath that parallels the Dillon reservoir, the trails that ebb and flow through the town’s nature preserve and the footpaths between neighborhoods.

The Dillon Town Council this week reviewed a Trails Master Plan that aims to inventory all the different pathways — from sidewalks to soft-surface trails — and begin to prioritize new connections and other improvements.

Dillon Public Works Director Scott O’Brien explained during the council’s work session on Tuesday, Dec 5, that town council member Brad Bailey pitched a project he called the Dillon Dirt Trails about a year or two ago.

The Dillon Dirt Trails project would have created some dirt trail connections between the town core and the recreation areas near the town cemetery, nature preserve and county landfill, O’Brien said. It also contemplated connections up to the Tenderfoot Mountain Trail, he said.

O’Brien said he reached out to some of the landowners whose property may include new trails, including the U.S. Forest Service, Summit County government and Denver Water.

“What they said to me is before they would consider any improvements they would like to see the town develop a Trails Master Plan,” O’Brien said. “All the other town’s currently have Trails Master Plans for their communities, and we did not have one.”

So, late last year, the town hired Zehren and Associates, an architecture and planning firm, to help complete a trails master plan. On Tuesday, Zehren and Associates landscape architect Pedro Campos presented the plan to council for feedback and input.

Even though the plan deals with the trails in the town of Dillon, it is worth thinking about the larger connections to other trail systems throughout Summit County, Campos said, highlighting four important areas of connection on a map.

Those important areas included where the bike path enters Silverthorne and where it heads out of town toward Summit Cove and Keystone, as well as the access point to the Tenderfoot Mountain Trail and the area near the nature preserve and dump trails.

The map also highlighted another important connection that Campos said the project team became aware of after holding an open house on Nov. 2 to discuss the Dillon Trails Master Plan with members of the public.

Residents spoke to the importance of making new connections to get from place to place in and around the Dillon Ridge Shopping Center, including to and from Little Beaver Trail and the Dillon Valley community, he said.

“They’re not necessarily just recreation trails — but moving trails so people can move on foot or by bicycle and have the option to leave their car at home,” Campos said.

These connections included a proposed paved trail connection to Dillon Ridge from Little Beaver Trail and a path and new sidewalks from the Lookout Ridge community toward the supermarket.

The Trails Master Plan also contemplates improving parking as more and more recreationalists have flocked to Summit County trails in recent years, he said.

“Particularly since COVID, there has been a spike in outdoor recreation and the great outdoors, and parking in particular at some of these destinations has become a limitation,” Campos said.

The Trails Master Plan contemplates expanding parking at the nature preserve trailhead as well as potential acceleration and deceleration lanes on U.S. Highway 6 to make access to the preserve safer. At this popular sledding area, it also recommends new picnic shelters, a trailhead kiosk, wayfinding signage and decommissioning of existing trails and commissioning of new ones at the preserve.

Meanwhile, at the disc golf course and Cemetery Road trails across from the preserve, the plan suggests new signage, a picnic shelter as well as paving and parking improvements.

Closer to the town center, one of the main focuses of the Trails Master Plan is to create new footpath connections to the Tenderfoot Mountain Trail as well as to create improved parking and overflow parking at the trailhead, Campos said.

It also proposes a soft-surface trail that would parallel the edge of the Dillon Reservoir headed out toward the nature preserve as well as a new flow trail from the top of Dillon Dam Road down to East Anemone Trail that garnered some excitement among children during the open house, he said.

The Trails Master Plan also identifies “aspirational” pedestrian overpasses over U.S. Highway 6 near Dillon Dam Road and Dillon Ridge, the intersection at Lake Dillon Drive and closer to the Corinthian Hills community, Campos said. Dillon town staff estimated pedestrian overpasses to cost $15-20 million each.

O’Brien said the hope is to earmark money in the town budget every year to work on trail improvements outlined in the plan.

“It’s really hard to prioritize these projects because I could see every single one of these happening and being really cool in town,” Mayor Carolyn Skowyra said. “If I had to prioritize, it would be commuter routes.”

That would include the soft-surface track along the lake or the flow trail from the top of Dillon Dam Road, Skowyra said, adding “things that create connections that are poorly connected now would be my priority.”

Council member Kyle Hendricks said he thinks it is most important to focus on the areas where lots of people live that don’t have safe pathways.

“As cool as it would be to have a single track here or a single track there to get people out in the great outdoors, I think what we should be focusing on is how we can have people safely moving about,” Hendrick said.

He specifically mentioned the existing connection to Dillon Valley along Little Beaver Trail, which he called “ridiculously dangerous” and proposed sidewalks along the north side of Highway 6.

Council member Renee Imamura said that despite the high cost of the pedestrian overpasses, she believes they are something the town should consider. Imamura confirmed with town staff that grants might be available to help fund such overpasses.

“I also think the overpasses are extremely important,” Council member Renee Imamura said. “It would be great to have those. … I mean Highway 6 is so dangerous.”