Snow + Fall Leaves = Perty

This weekend I had my mind set that I was going to hike Grays and Torreys Peaks. These are two 14kers that are pretty close to Denver and allowed me to sleep in a little bit. So I got up around 5:30ish ready to roll. The drive only took about 1 hour from Denver to get to the dirt/gravel/rock road leading up to the trail head. From there it's about another 2.2 miles of winding around the mountain trying not to hit every pothole and rock known to man. As soon as I got on the road, it started snowing and by the time I got to the trail head, it was coming down pretty good. Unfortunately my hiking boots recently had some technical difficulties and they were being shipped back for a replacement pair so all I had was basic tennis shoes. I quickly retreated for a less snowy trail until my shoes come in but I wanted to share a few pictures from the trail head which were really pretty.

So after my retreat, I did some Googling and found the Herman Gulch Trail was only about a mile or so down the road. This is a fairly moderate trail that is 6.4 miles out and back and has ~1,732 elevation gain. The start of the trail wasn't much fun since it was a small rock paved path and it was close enough to the interstate that you could still hear the traffic. After about 30 minutes or so it changed quite a bit and you started to get into the woods and felt like you were in a different world. It also helped that there was ~1 in. of snow on the ground and it really made all of the trees and everything around you pop out. 

After a few miles through the woods, you start going uphill again headed towards Herman Lake. The views were ok of the surrounding woods and smaller mountains but you didn't get high enough to see more than a few miles away.

Overall it was a pretty nice hike just to get away from everyone else. Since I went pretty early in the morning I only saw about 10 people the entire time I was there. The parking is also very convenient to the interstate and can hold quite a few cars.