I love the Rocky Mountains in the summer! Over the last several years, I have developed a serious need to go hiking whenever the opportunity presents itself. Last summer, I managed to get in 36 hikes between mid-March and the beginning of November. With my busy schedule, that means I was usually either at work or hiking! I suppose there are far worse things to be obsessed with, right?

The ultimate purpose of this blog is to share all of the great hiking experiences I've had with other hikers. I've found that there is an unfortunate lack of good hiking websites, so I hope to contribute in some small way to people looking for a good day hike in the Colorado Rockies (and in the surrounding states).

My hikes tend to fall into two categories: destination hikes or exploration hikes. Obviously, destination hikes have a specific location or turn-around point. Exploration hikes on the other hand, don't necessarily have any pre-planned destination. The latter typically involves me setting out for a specific amount of time and seeing how far I can go. My trips along the Colorado Trail and several of the state and county parks are exploration hikes where I decide on my route while I'm on the trail. Because these hikes have no specific destination, there's no reason to stick to the route that I describe. When looking at my blog entries, you'll notice that some of the hikes are named for the destination (e.g. Hanging Lake or Carpenter Peak), while others are named for the area that I was exploring (e.g. Reynolds Park or Colorado Trail Segment 3).

My 2007 hikes now have distance and difficulty ratings at the start of the descriptions. The distances are all aproximate and difficulty ratings are subjective. I do not hike with a GPS unit, so I don't have precise mileage or elevation gain/loss details. My difficulty rating works like this:

Easy - flat routes with little or no elevation change

Moderate - varried terrain with more flat than steep sections, or a constant climb that is neither too steep nor too flat

Difficult - varried terrain with more steep than flat sections

Strenuous - a constant steep climb, substantial elevation gain, few or no flat sections

In case you're interested, I have found many of my hikes from the following sources:

1) Protrails.com - Run by two avid hikers out of Boulder, this site's Colorado section focuses primarily on hiking in and around the Boulder area, including Rocky Mountain National Park and the Indian Peaks Wilderness. They just recently added a section on the Colorado National Monument south of Grand Junction and they have extensive sections on parks in California, Utah, Arizona, North Dakota, South Dakota, and Florida. These guys are great at reporting detailed trailhead information, hike details, and nice pictures.

2) National Forest websites - Although not necessarily the easiest sites to navigate, the National Forest Service has pretty extensive websites for hiking trails. I have made extensive use of the Pike National Forest site, including this list of non-motorized trails: http://www.fs.fed.us/r2/psicc/recreation/trails/trail_guide.shtml. Unfortunately, this site leaves a little too much to the imagination as there are few pictures, which I find a bit frustrating.

3) Colorado State Parks website - This is a very well-maintained site providing extensive information and a fair number of pictures for each of Colorado's many state parks. Many of these parks are not necessarily good for hiking, so spend some time researching each park before you set out. My personal favorites are Roxborough and Golden Gate Canyon. http://www.parks.state.co.us/

4) Jefferson and Boulder County Open Space parks - These two counties are probably the best in terms of open space parks along the front range. Both sites offer maps and good driving directions to their county's many parks.
Jefferson County: http://jeffco.us/openspace/index.htm
Boulder County: http://www.co.boulder.co.us/openspace/

5) My favorite hiking books:
- The Complete Guide to Colorado's Wilderness Areas - John Fielder and Mark Pearson
- The Colorado Mountain Club Guidebook - The Colorado Trail (Seventh Edition)
- 100 Classic Hikes In Colorado (Second Edition) - Scott S. Warren

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