Where does "dog friendly" actually end on the Animas River Trail? Most people who walk it every day assume the answer is somewhere vague, a matter of how far you feel like going. It isn't vague at all. It ends at a specific parking lot at 500 Animas View Drive, and past that gravel, the rules change completely.
Where the Pavement Actually Ends
If you're heading north from downtown, the route is simple: follow Main Avenue past 37th Street, take the slight right onto Animas View Drive at the light, and go about half a mile. The entrance is on the right. That drive is the last stretch of pavement most trail users see before the character of the place shifts entirely.
The Animas River Trail itself now runs a full 9 miles, from Oxbow Park and Preserve at the north end down to River Road on the south side of town. That number is relatively new. For years the trail measured closer to 7 miles, ending well short of Oxbow, until a pedestrian bridge and underpass at 32nd Street opened in August 2022 and stitched the two systems together into one continuous route. Along that paved stretch, the rules are what you'd expect from a city multi-use path: dogs on leash, bikes, e-bikes, skates, strollers, all welcome.
The Sign at the Put-In
Keep walking or riding to the end of that pavement and you'll reach the Oxbow lot and put-in area, the spot where kayakers and paddleboarders launch into the calm water where the river widens around the oxbow bend. This is still fair game for dogs and bikes. It's the last place on the property where that's true.
The city's own posted policy for what lies beyond it is short:
No Dogs or bicycles allowed in Oxbow Preserve. Pedestrian access only.
That's not a suggestion for the faint of heart. It's the actual rule, and it applies the moment you step off the lot and onto the preserve's own trail network. Here's the practical version, since the signage itself won't spell out the "why":
- On the paved Animas River Trail: dogs on leash, bikes, e-bikes, and skates are all fine.
- In the Oxbow parking lot and river put-in: dogs and bikes are still allowed.
- On the natural-surface trails inside Oxbow Preserve itself: foot traffic only. No dogs, no bikes, no exceptions.
Anyone who's brought a dog up expecting to keep walking past the lot has almost certainly turned around at some point wondering why. Now you know exactly where that line falls and why it holds.
Thirty-Eight Acres With No Trail At All
The reason isn't arbitrary. Trip-planning guides that catalog the property put the preserve itself at roughly 44 acres, and describe it as split into two working parts. One section handles the river access, the beach, the walking paths, the parts most visitors actually experience. The other, roughly 38 of those 44 acres, is set aside purely as wildlife habitat with no public trail running through it at all.
That habitat does real work. Colorado Parks and Wildlife runs bird monitoring and banding sessions under the cottonwood trees at Oxbow Preserve each summer, with staff and volunteers capturing and recording birds as part of ongoing tracking efforts. Guides that track the property's wildlife list more than 85 bird species using the preserve, and separately note deer, elk, foxes, and bobcats moving through. The broader Animas River Trail corridor is known for the same cast of characters, with bald eagles, cooper's hawks, black-billed magpies, and great blue herons regularly spotted along the water.
None of that happens by accident on a piece of ground open to leashed dogs and mountain bikes at all hours. The pedestrian-only rule is what keeps 38 acres functioning as habitat instead of as an extension of the recreation trail. It's a different kind of public land doing a different kind of job, and the parking lot is simply where one job ends and the other begins.
The Corridor Getting Worked On From Both Ends This Year
This year happens to be one where you can watch both sides of that seam get attention at the same time. The city's multi-year rebuild of the Animas River Trail's older asphalt sections has been moving north through this exact stretch. As of late August 2026, the segment between 29th Street and Demon Bridge reopened and the project entered its next phase. The adjoining section toward the Rio Vista Spur has already been repaved, though it's staying closed a little longer while seeding and planting work finishes along the edges.
Animas View Drive itself, the connector road you'd actually drive or bike to reach Oxbow, shows up on the city's current project list for safety improvements aimed at people walking and biking, not just people in cars. Separately, the North Main Avenue corridor between 17th Street and Animas View Drive is getting accessibility work at its transit stops, which matters if you're one of the residents who takes Route 2 out to the Animas View and 32nd Street area instead of driving. That bus ride runs a dollar each way, fifty cents for seniors and riders with disabilities, and the city's DuranGo! microtransit service will do a curb-to-curb pickup anywhere in city limits for two dollars if the fixed route doesn't line up with your schedule.
Same Street, Different Storefronts
The approach itself is changing too. Ski Barn closed the doors on its original north Main Avenue location at 3533 Main Ave at the end of April 2026, after 53 years in that spot, consolidating down to its south store as owner Bill Brown pointed to REI's planned Durango debut later that year as part of the pressure on the business. A few blocks south, the old Days Inn at 3030 Main Ave reopened in the fall of 2024 under a new name, Boundary by Terra Vi, rebuilt and repositioned toward the same outdoor-minded crowd that uses this trail on a Tuesday morning before work.
None of this changes what's allowed on the preserve's trails. It does mean that if you haven't driven this stretch of Main Avenue in a few months, the businesses lining the route to your own trailhead look different than you might remember.
What This Actually Adds Up To
Put it together and the trail North Durango treats as one continuous loop is really two separate systems sharing a single seam. One is a paved, multi-use recreation corridor funded and maintained like a piece of city infrastructure, currently under active repaving and lighting work as it moves north through the neighborhood. The other is a conservation preserve where the majority of the acreage exists specifically so bird banding sessions and elk sightings can keep happening undisturbed. The parking lot at 500 Animas View Drive is where they meet, and it's the only place on the property where the rules from both sides technically overlap.
If you've lived here long enough to have a favorite bench along that river, you already know the loop by feel. Knowing exactly where the rulebook changes, and why the city is willing to leave 38 acres without a single trail through it, just makes the walk make a little more sense the next time you're standing at that lot deciding whether to keep going.
If you're weighing whether it's time to trade this loop for more space, or you know someone who's been eyeing this side of town for exactly this kind of daily walk, Alicia Romero at LiveInDurango knows this stretch of North Durango block by block. Start your move, request a home valuation, and get a straight answer about what's actually changing in this neighborhood.
