Flood washes out bridge on Phil's World's Hippie House loop
A trail runner found the footbridge on the return loop knocked out of place and the crossing uncrossable. The local cycling club is planning to put the bridge back.
The footbridge on the return loop of the Hippie House trail at Phil’s World, the mountain bike trail system east of Cortez, has been knocked out of place by recent high water, and riders and runners are being warned off.
Lindsay Yeager found it on a trail run Friday, Nov. 6.
“On the return loop the bridge is gone. Like, uncrossable,” she wrote that day in the public Facebook group The Original What’s Up? Dolores, Mancos, Cortez! “I didn’t have anything with me to mark the trail head but it should be closed.”
Her photos show what happened. The bridge’s wooden deck sits at an angle at the edge of a muddy wash, off its crossing, and the trail drops into mud and standing water where the bridge used to be.
The good news is that the bridge itself may be reusable. “SWCCA is already underway with planning to put the intact bridge back asap,” Dave Stamm replied, referring to the Southwest Colorado Cycling Association. The volunteer club, formerly the Kokopelli Bike Club, builds and maintains trails in the Cortez, Dolores and Mancos area.
Yeager wrote that she had messaged the club and was told it would put up a sign at the trailhead the next day. “Just hate to see anyone get hurt,” she wrote.
Don Hoffheins wrote that there “is/was a sign at the trailhead,” and that it was “probably damaged in the latest episode of rains.” On Sunday, Dani Gregory wrote that the “Trust and Hippie Loops have been closed.”
As of Wednesday morning, neither the Bureau of Land Management nor the cycling club had posted a closure notice. The BLM’s Phil’s World page and its Tres Rios Field Office page list no closure, and the club’s Facebook page has said nothing about the bridge.
Phil’s World’s trails cross both public land managed by the BLM’s Tres Rios Field Office and neighboring state land that the cycling club leases, according to the BLM. The trailhead is off Road 30.1 across U.S. Highway 160 from the Montezuma County Fairgrounds. Questions about the trails can go to the Tres Rios Field Office at 970-882-7296 or to the club at swcca@swcocycling.com.
The post drew 99 reactions and some ribbing. Chad Hummer suggested everyone “pitch in a few dollars” to buy a replacement off Craigslist. Utah Bob wrote: “I wish my little bridge had stayed intact like that.”
The washout is one of many trail problems around the region after weeks of heavy rain and flooding. The San Juan National Forest warned in October that crews will be assessing trail and road damage there into 2027, and it told visitors not to ford water crossings or cross damaged bridges.
Sources: Lindsay Yeager’s post, photos and the comments on them in The Original What’s Up? Dolores, Mancos, Cortez! (Nov. 6-8, 2026); Bureau of Land Management, Phil’s World and Tres Rios Field Office pages; Southwest Colorado Cycling Association Facebook page; San Juan National Forest news release, Oct. 23, 2026.