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Print Friendly MapThe Dillon Reservoir Recpath offers an 18.1-mile scenic route along the shore of the Dillon Reservoir in the White River National Forest, connecting the towns of Frisco and Dillon. The trail curves around the majority of the reservoir between the reservoir's southern tip at the intersection of Swan Mountain Rd & Goodale Rd (Breckenridge) and Sapphire Point Overlook (Swan Mountain Rd, Dillon).
From the intersection of Swan Mountain Rd & Goodale Rd, the trail heads northwest through Frisco Adventure Park. Curving north through Frisco, the route parallels Summit Boulevard and the western edge of the reservoir.
Heading north out of Frisco, the trail parallels Dillon Dam Road. Enjoy exceptional views of the lake and Keystone Mountain. At Point Dillon Park, connect to the Silverthorne Recpath to reach downtown Silverthorne. Meandering east along the north edge of the reservoir, the trail heads through Dillon and curves south to follow the eastern edge of the reservoir until just south of Sapphire Point Overlook (Swan Mountain Rd, Dillon). This portion overlaps with the Swan Mountain Recpath.
At its southwest end near the reservoir's southern tip, the trail connects to the Frisco-Farmers Korner Recpath and the Blue River Recpath to Breckenridge. Follow the Frisco-Farmers Korner Recpath west along the south side of town to connect to the Ten Mile Canyon Recpath, a rail-trail with stunning views that heads south to Copper Mountain.
On the eastern side of the reservoir, the trail connects to the Snake River Recpath which heads west to Keystone.
Parking is available at numerous points along the trail, including:
Visit the TrailLink map for all options and detailed directions.
To go all the way around the lake is very difficult. The entire south side of the lake is very difficult and includes a stretch on a narrow road. The west, north, and east sides were awesome.
Beautiful fun flat for Colorado.
E-bikes seem to be widely in use and welcome now (July 2021). Beautiful and well-maintained trail with amazing scenery.
My daughters and I competed this today. The girls are ages 5 & 6. It was a tad difficult for my 5 year old, but she did it with lots of encouragement! We started at the Dillon end and road to the Frisco end. If I were to do it again, I would do it the opposite direction. This is so that the kids would be on the lake side when we get to the highways. It was a little hairy, with young riders, when we were on the longer stretches next to the highways.
We rode our eBikes on this trail only to learn afterwards that eBikes aren’t welcome in this community. This being contrary to the bike friendly community signs posted along the roads and trails. (Colorado passed a law last year defining the classes of eBikes and our bikes fall into the category of Class I bicycles.) Unsure why this community doesn’t want eBikes on their trails. We were passed by multiple road bikers, without warning, traveling much faster than us. Despite the unwelcome attitude toward our bikes we did enjoy our ride, not much choice than to finish up once it we had gone so far. Ended up being a loop around Dillon Reservoir, all bike path except for small section of downhill road on Swan Mountain. Stopped for some lemon-aid from some enterprising little girls with a trail side lemon-aid stand.
June 1, 2018. Round trip from Keystone to Frisco Marina Park, 25 miles. Perfectly maintained trail, winds around the Snake River, the lake, with views of water and snow covered high mountain peaks. Friendly riders and walkers. A spiritually restoring experience. Consider the 9000' elevation if you are visiting.
I did this path on a double drop longboard and it is a beautiful path. Not only is this trail absolutely beautiful the pavement is super smooth. When I skate a path I generally look for a path that follows a creek so that my return skate will be all down hill, today was the exception to the rule. The path is 9.6 mi. long and I stopped at 8.5 mi. which gave me a 17 mi. round trip of which offered a ton of up and down skating. I am a carving junkie and like to keep my speed below 20 MPH since I only know how to foot brake. This trail has so much up and down that I did very little carving so as to not shed speed and have enough speed to make it partially up the next hill. In 8.5 mi. the altitude difference was 93 feet, and my vertical ascent 667 feet, giving me a total vertical distance of 1338 feet, lots of up and down. It took me 3 hr. round trip with a 25 min. lunch break. I would definitely do this path again except I would give myself more time so I could skate all the way around the whole reservoir.
This trail is nestled in the Colorado high peaks between Keystone, Copper and Breckenridge. For being in the mountains, it is relatively flat, but there are many small ups and down to make it a good 12mile round trip workout. Beautiful scenery all along the way, including from on top of the Dillon Dam. You can connect to the Blue River and Snake River trails, but they are less scenic as they go along the road for much of the way.
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