Mount Falcon

It's finally getting that time of year again when we can start hiking and not freeze our butts off. To start out the season Ali and I normally like to start out on the front range where there isn't much snow and try to get back into hiking shape. This year we decided to start out with Mount Falcon Castle Trail. According to AllTrails, it's about 7.9 miles with an 1,827 foot elevation gain however we did a slight variation, Castle Trail --> Meadow Trail --> Tower Trail --> Meadow Trail --> Castle Trail --> Turkey Trot Trail. This prevented us from doing the typical down and back and gave us a different view of Red Rocks in the distance.

Overall I'd say the hike is fairly moderate and provides some good views of the front range. It starts out gradually sloping up some switchbacks that provides you a good view of Red Rocks as seen below.

Once you get off the front of the mountain, it levels out a little until you get to the "castle" portion of the hike. This mansion was owned by John Brisben Walker and dates back to around 1909. Most families seemed to stop here and head back down but if you continue up, that is where the best views are.

The picture below is from the Eagle Eye Shelton. It was very well made and a great place to bring lunch or take a break. If you continue up to the Tower Trail, you then reach the Fire Tower which has a good view of Denver and Red Rocks.

All in all it was a pretty good trail to start the year out on. My only complaint is that there were a lot of bikers on the trail so we continually had to get out of the way for them.