Elk Meadow Park

Since I've fallen behind on posts, it's time to double up. The next hike of the year was at Elk Meadow Park, right outside of Evergreen. The specific trails that we took were Sleepy Trail --> Elk Ridge --> Meadow View --> Too Long Trail --> Bergen Peak Trail --> Elk Ridge --> Sleepy Trail.

To start out it's a fairly easy stroll through some meadows with more "rolling mountains" in the background. If you go early enough and beat all of the mountain bikers, you can normally spot some deer roaming around. While I normally like the steeper mountains, it was a nice change of pace to get these views as well.

After you get through the meadows portion, you start getting into a slightly wooded area that starts switch-backing up the mountain. It was a little warm when we went so the shade was greatly appreciated. As you work your way up, the views continue to get better and better. The picture below is a view from the very top looking back down into the meadows and Evergreen to your left. As you can see, it's a decent trek up even though it's not too steep at any given point in time.

Here is another view from the top that looks off into some snow-capped peaks in the distance.

Overall I would say this hike was slightly better than Mount Falcon due to the views being a little better and it was less crowded overall. If you do the full loop, you end up going a little over 10 miles with ~2,000 elevation gain.