Square Top Mountain

I've been slacking big time on posting on here so going to try to do a quick catch up on a few of our most recent hikes. I'm also going to change the format a little bit to make it easier for anyone to quickly look at the page and see relevant information.

Drive & Parking
From the west side of Denver, it was little over an hour to get tot he trail head. The entire road is paved and and pretty straight forward. Once you start getting close to the trail head, you'll probably see 4 million cars all along the road. Don't be worried, all of these people are doing Mt. Bierstadt and not Square Top.

Continue past the madness and there will be a fairly large parking lot with bathrooms for this hike. We got there around 7:30 and only about 25% of the lot was full.

Distance
6.9 miles

Elevation Gain
2,440 feet

Difficulty
I'd say this hike is fairly hard overall. There are only a few sections of the trail where it's very steep but the entire trail is steadily uphill. Between that and it maxing out around 13,794, it adds up quickly. There are not any technical portions of this trail though.

The Hike
The hike starts out with a some little rolls as you start winding towards the bottom of the mountain. There are quite a few little creeks/streams that are around the trail and depending on the weather, you may be be sharing the trail with some of the creeks for portions of the trail.

About half way into the round trip, you'll see one lake right beside the trail and then a branch off to the right that leads to another lake that isn't as visible from the main trail. As the day goes on, this area will get fairly busy as a lot of people don't complete the full hike but just go to the lakes.

After the lakes, the gradual uphill becomes quite a bit steeper. There aren't any switchbacks on this one so it's pretty much a grind straight up. As you get towards the top of the mountain you have some pretty views of the lakes below. In the picture below you can see both of them as well as the road in the background. The trail head is straight ahead over the hill.

After a what feels like a long time of uphill, you finally reach the sudo top of the mountain and can see a few additional lakes on the east side.

You then have a slightly more rocky but less steep climb to the very top of the mountain. Overall, the summit area is very large and there is probably only 100 feet or so if elevation difference from one side vs. the other.

All-in-all, I'd say it's a pretty good hike to do. A lot of the 14ers are overrated and way too crowded. This 13er will give you almost everything Mt. Bierstadt would. The entire trail is exposed so it wouldn't be ideal on a very hot or windy day. But it does give you a good mixture of lakes and views.