Herman Gulch Trail to Citadel Summit

For this weekend's adventure we stayed pretty close to Denver and hit up the Herman Gulch Trail. I'd done this trail once before but there was about a foot of snow o the ground so it was quite a bit different this time around.

The trail head is only about 55 minutes or so from Denver and it's right off I-70 which makes it a very easy trip. The parking lot is also pretty big so if you get there at a decent time, you shouldn't have an issue at all.

The first part of the trail is a steady uphill climb through Aspen trees and then you start to follow the river on your left. For about 15-20 minutes you still get quite a bit of I-70 noise which isn't ideal but that soon goes away once you get past that first incline.

After the incline, you are in more of a meadow-ish area with great views of mountains on all sides and the river on your left. We were there around 7:00 am and were the only people on the trail which was really nice as this trail gets very popular later. We probably passed at least 30 people on our way back around 2:00 pm.

About 1 hr. 37 min. into the hike we hit Herman Lake. It's a pretty nice lake but nothing special compared to so many others in the area.

Once you pass the lake, you continue to keep the river on your left and you get some great views of the valley you just came from and Citadel. We really like this part of the hike but the trail becomes slightly iffy and it's more of a "make your own path". We did a lot more walking that we should have the first time around. Overall, you keep the river on your left until you get close to the mountain. Then you need to be sure you go left as that's where the trail starts heading up to the summit.

The trail up to the summit is class 2 until you get about 200 feet away. It then turns into a class 3 scramble with a lot of loose rocks. I unfortunately followed another group and I thought they knew where they were going but apparently not and we did more of a class 4 climb up to the top instead of taking the actual trail. For anyone reading this, ignore the first 3 ravines going up to the peak and continue around the left side of them until you see the real trail.

The first picture below is where I ended up going up (wrong trail), and the second one is where I went down (correct trail).

The views at the top were great and after the last climb, which was a lot of fun, it made it worth it.

After our random walking around where we shouldn't of, the hike ended up being a little over 11 miles for us with a 3,642 elevation gain. I would highly recommend this trail to anyone as it gives you a mix of everything. You get your forest, meadows, and water at the bottom them scrambling/mountain views at the top.