Tonahutu Creek Trail

 trail, NRHP - National Register of Historic Places

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This is a small selected portion of the Tonahutu Creek Trail, a historic hiking trail listed on the National Register of Historic Places (NRHP). The trail, which begins at the bottom of the polygon, runs for about 13 miles north and east to Flattop Mountain. The trail, established in 1880, is associated with the late 19th and early 20th century resort industry around the Grand Lake region. Like most trails on the west side of Rocky Mountain National Park, the Tonahutu Creek Trail gained popularity with tourists later than its east-side counterparts. However, tourists were not the first people to use and appreciate this trail. The Arapaho historically preferred the Tonahutu Creek Trail to its alternative, the North Inlet Trail (also listed on the NRHP), for reaching Flattop Mountain from Grand Lake. Later work on the trail reflects the National Park Service’s Naturalistic Design philosophy of the 1920s through the 1940s.