Where mountain bikers once joined vehicles on a busy road to reach a beloved lake in Colorado, now they have a trail of their own.

Builders with Crested Butte Mountain Bike Association (CBMA) recently finished the Lake Irwin Trail — a new, 2-mile stretch of singletrack roughly paralleling the dirt road to the scenic destination for picnicking, camping and more riding.

More riding, for example, to the famed Dyke Trail or Lilly Lake. Those were two possible connections mentioned by Paul Mack, CBMA’s board president.

“It’s a small trail … but at the same time it’s the connectivity thing that’s super important to us,” Mack said.

Small in length, but he described the trail to Lake Irwin as significant in other ways.

“It’s just killer good,” he said.

He went on: “To get to the lake before, you had to deal with traffic and the dust and just the awful washboard of that road. And there’s always the safety issue, too.”

Which is why Crested Butte’s mountain biking advocates long ago pressed the U.S. Forest Service for more trails taking riders off roads. The initiative started with public outreach and surveying in 2017, leading to the Forest Service’s North Valley Trails Project. The agency approved an environmental assessment last year, clearing the way for nine miles of new trail.

The Lake Irwin Trail “was one of the big ones,” Mack said.

The result, he said: “It’s a delight.”

The trail starts from “the Y,” as locals simply know it — the split in the road continuing left for Kebler Pass and right for Lake Irwin. Switchbacks rise up to meadows before the path ventures into the tall forest that clears at the lake.

Mack called the trail “100% cruiser rideable,” appealing also to hikers.