Distance: 4 miles Rating: strenuous Nice spring weather continued into the end of March and early April along the front range, so I seized the opportunity to get in another hike. With this time of year, you never really know what kind of weather is going to be thrown your way, so its best to take advantage every possible sunny day. I was just getting over a particularly nasty cold, so I figured it would be a good idea to take it relatively easy on this hike. Well, this hike may be fairly short, but relatively easy it certainly isn't. For [View Full Entry]

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Distance: 3.5 miles Rating: Via Sanitas Valley trail - difficult After making it through a long, cold, and miserable winter, we Coloradans were rewarded with early summer-like weather in March. For those who aren't from around here, March tends to be our snowiest month, so when the temperatures hit the lower 70's, I started to get pretty excited! So, I dusted off the hiking boots and headed up to the Boulder area for my first warm-up hike (think of it almost like my pre-season...). The Mt. Sanitas loop is a part of Boulder's extensive foothills trail system and provides some great [View Full Entry]

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After a few weeks of bad weather, my folks and I decided to head down to the Pikes Peak area for what would be our last hike of the season. By this point, several areas in the mountains had already received a fair amount of snow and there was a very noticable chill to the air. The Pikes Peak Massif towers over Colorado Springs to the east and provides some of the most stunning mountain views in all of Colorado. The Crags area is a genuinely unusual and impressive region on the northwest corner of the massif featuring huge outcroppings [View Full Entry]

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This was a somewhat abbreviated hike, so it's going to be treated with a somewhat abbreviated description... After the previous week's chilly hike, it was nice to see the weather climb back up into the high 60's just in time for the weekend. After my visit to Golden Gate Canyon earlier in the summer, I was determined to return for at least one more hike before the season ended. My dad and I decided to climb up into the beautiful Frazier Meadow area, which on the east side of the ridge seen in the pictures I took at Ol' Barn [View Full Entry]

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As I've mentioned before, the weather in Colorado can be extraordinarily hard to predict. The week before this hike, the temperatures were normal for late September (low 70's). Then a fluke storm moved in on Saturday and dumped the first substantial snow in the high country. By the time I made it up to Evergreen for this hike, the snow was all gone, but the evidence of the storm could be seen up on Mt. Evans and certainly felt in the crisp air. Alderfer/Three Sisters is one of Jefferson County's open space parks and is just outside of downtown Evergreen. [View Full Entry]

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With the end of the season rapidly approaching and my wanderlust barely satisfied, I started looking to areas of the mountains that I hadn't visited yet. My original plan on this particular weekend was to head up to the Lost Creek Wilderness Area, out along US 285 (Hampden Ave in Denver). I'm not sure how I've managed to miss the 285 corridor all together in the past. This is a beautiful and much less congested area of the mountains than the areas accessed via I-70. The drive up to Kenosha Pass takes you through several small towns and hamlets such [View Full Entry]

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With Fall starting to show up by way of the yellowing aspen leaves, my dad and I decided to head up to Rocky Mountain National Park for what would be our last hike in the area this year. At well over 11,000 feet, the two summits of Twin Sisters Peak dominate the landscape on the eastern border of the park. In fact, the peaks are easily visible from the surrounding areas such as the parks outside of Boulder. When I was much younger, I recall attempting this hike with a summer camp group, but I don't recall if I managed [View Full Entry]

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After spending most of my time hiking in northern areas of the state, I finally decided it was time to venture south and visit some places outside of Colorado Springs. Waldo Canyon is a relatively easy 7 mile hike just outside of Manitou Springs (essentially a suburb of Colorado Springs). Interestingly, this hike is considered the most popular in all of the Pike National Forest, which extends from the Mt. Evans area all the way south to Pikes Peak. The trailhead is easy to find (its just off US 24 outside of Manitou Springs) and it provides a nice taste [View Full Entry]

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In case you haven't figured it out yet, I like to go on hikes where the landscape is dominated by unique rock formations and geology. Horsetooth Mountain certainly satisfies that desire. At the mountain's summit is Horsetooth Rock, a formation that can be seen from Ft. Collins below. Horestooth Mountain Park is one of several Larimer County Open Space parks and provides nearly 30 miles of hiking trails. One of the trails (the Nomad Trail) connects with the popular Lory State Park to the north. Most of the trails start at the parking lot and picnic area off of CR [View Full Entry]

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Hall Ranch is part of Boulder County's extensive open space park system and offers over 25 miles of round trip hiking and biking trails. The park occupies a fairly arid region just outside of the town of Lyons on the way up to Rocky Mountain National Park. Dominating the landscape at the trailhead are several mesas with tilted summits, the result of ancient volcanic and oceanic activity. The path I chose was the Bitterbrush Trail, which gradually climbs into the heart of the park. Prickly pear cactus and scrub brush dominates the landscape during the first half of the hike [View Full Entry]

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