USFS National Forest System Trails · Gila National Forest · New Mexico · Updated June 2026
Cottonwood (USFS trail 44) is a 2.7 mi trail in Gila National Forest, New Mexico. Mountain bikes are designated as allowed year-round, with no Class 1 e-bike designation on record.
Can I bike Cottonwood?
| Use | Status | Season on record |
|---|---|---|
| Mountain bike | Allowed | year-round |
| Class 1 e-bike (pedal-assist, 20 mph) | Restricted | — |
| Class 2 e-bike (throttle, 20 mph) | Restricted | — |
| Class 3 e-bike (pedal-assist, 28 mph) | Restricted | — |
Zooming out: across Gila National Forest, 88% of rideable trail miles are open to mountain bikes — a Bike Access Grade of A.
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About this trail
Cottonwood (USFS trail 44) runs 2.7 mi through Gila National Forest in New Mexico. The figures here are pulled from the official US Forest Service trail data for Gila National Forest, covering the trail's mileage, tread, grade band, and the bike and e-bike uses the agency lists as designated. The tread is mapped as native material. No grade band is recorded, so a steepness-based difficulty isn't available for this trail. Bike use is designated as allowed year-round. The agency lists no Class 1, 2 or 3 e-bike designation here; absent a local order to the contrary, that means e-bikes are not an allowed use on this trail. The route is mapped as USFS Trail Class 2 on the agency's 1-to-5 development scale, where 1 is the most primitive, minimally maintained tread and 5 is the most developed. Because conditions, closures, and local orders change between data refreshes, confirm the current status with the managing ranger district before you ride.
Frequently asked questions
- Can you mountain bike on Cottonwood?
- Yes. Mountain bikes are designated as allowed on Cottonwood in Gila National Forest, year-round, per USFS data.
- Are e-bikes allowed on Cottonwood?
- No e-bike class (1, 2 or 3) is designated on Cottonwood in the USFS data.
- How long is Cottonwood?
- Cottonwood measures about 2.7 mi in total, summed across its mapped National Forest System segments.
- What is the surface of Cottonwood?
- USFS data records the tread surface of Cottonwood as native material.
How we read this data
Grade-based difficulty above is the USFS grade (route steepness), not a technical mountain-bike rating — a gentle-grade trail can still be rocky or technical, and vice versa. Bike and e-bike status come verbatim from the USFS managed-use fields for this trail; we never infer access we can't cite. See our methodology for how the dataset is built and what each field means.
Where it is
Approximate location of Gila National Forest (USFS trail geometry isn't mapped).
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