Despite its many good traits, this course's particular rough, rugged nature has drawbacks too.
One of the big differences I noticed is the fairways. In WI its mostly grass or dirt, and you take the skip shots and roller lines for granted. Not so here. The fairway is a tough mix of dirt, rocks, low shrubs and long, unmown grass, which puts a soft floor on your lines, rather than a clear fairway where you can hug the terrain a little more, and amplifies the slope of the terrain.
That is a good thing, and adds challenge to the course, but its a pain for many reasons: it makes disc finding much harder, and can really scratch you up. This course is not mowed (its in the mountains) so some spots have deep shule that just eats discs, and is painful to walk through.
Also, the teepads are quite basic, dirt affairs. On such a steep course, level teepads are a luxury, especially dirt ones, and in most cases they are pretty good, but some are bumpy or sloping and make the teeshot tougher than it needs to be.
Navigation on this course could be better. The front nine forms a nice little loop, and the back nine have decent flow, if a little spaced out sometimes, but they go away in a straight line with 18 leaving you on the other end of the park from where you started. However, the back nine are great, and they made use of available terrain between cabins and roads very well, which wouldnt have allowed a nice loop like front nine, so better to have the great holes and have a hike afterwards, though it is a definite con that keeps this from being a better course.
Many of the holes on the back nine are across roads from the previous, so some next tee arrows would be nice here, otherwise its hard to find w/o a map. The map is a neccessity to play this course, and even then, with the evil shule spots and several blind baskets, its not super FTF.
In some cases, there are cabins and roads close enough to the holes that they sorta come into play alongside one fairway. I skipped one across a road and onto a cabin roof, and in other cases there is a spike hyzer line over a cabin off the tee that makes sense, which to me is a broken window (car or cabin) waiting to happen.
Also, several teepads seemed like they could be a little close to the previous basket, meaning not really protected from it, or even downhill of basket landing zone, but with these elevation changes, its hard to tell
This course doesnt seem to get a lot of traffic, due to its isolated location, so these last two potential dangers haven't become an issue. They werent when we played, but there were a few other groups out there both times (sunday and monday) which tells me its more a steady trickle of players on this course rather than the regular crowds you see in city courses.
You will want a spotter on this course, unless you dont mind spending some time having to find yours, and as long as u stay out of the worst shule, you should be ok.
Despite the many interesting wrinkles this course throws at you, I feel like its mostly a little open for my liking, and the long shule makes it more painful than it has to be. The tight lines it throws at you, sometimes fell a little like pinball. I like them, but I can see how some might not. That, combined with the lack of navigation signs and design flaws (some unavoidable and worthwhile), keeps me from rating this course higher.
This is a very fun course if you have a spotter, but its too rough to really make me want to come back. Its not a bad course, but I know mountain courses can get alot better. This course is worth playing and in a great location, but I think if you are hitting the highlights of CO, there seem to be others you should visit first, though I haven't played them, so I cant say for sure.
Worth playing, fun, not outstanding.