There are a few different ways to hike Pikes Peak but the easiest day trip I could find (other than obviously driving it), was via Crags Trail. According to All Trails, this is 12.6 miles long with a lovely 4,468 elevation gain. My Gamin had is at 14.29 miles but it tends to shoot high from time to time.
As soon as you start this trail, it's a solid uphill climb. The first few miles are in and out of the woods until you get above the treeline and have a fairly sucky push uphill in the sun to Devil's Playground. There is one fairly long ridge before getting to the Playground that levels out some and gives you a nice view of Pike's Peak as well as Mueller State Park to the west.
Once you get past that ridge, you have to cross the Pike's Peak Tollway and then continue the trail on the east side. There are parts of the trail that run right beside the road which isn't ideal but then other sections that veer off and gives you some good views. The picture below is Pike's in the distance.
The final stretch of the trip is zig zagging back and forth between a fairly large boulder field. You had to do some scrambling but it wasn't bad at all. Once you get past that, you are afforded a lovely view of 50+ vehicles where people drove up and a lot of construction.
Overall it was a pretty tough hike since you were going uphill constantly and it was fairly high elevation. I'm glad we did it but it definitely wasn't one of my favorite hikes due to how many people were on the trail and having to deal with the road/traffic at the top of the mountain.
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