Beaver Reservoir to Coney Lake

Drive & Parking
From the west side of Denver it's a little under 1.5 hours. Assuming you go early enough in the morning, the drive up and through Boulder isn't bad at all. Once you go west on James Canyon Drive, you may get stuck behind some slow traffic as you wind through the mountains.

Parking was kind of weird since there are a lot of camp grounds around there and also you will see "Private Property" signs everywhere. We parked right beside the reservoir on the side of the road before the 4x4 trail starts. There isn't a ton of space here so I'd get there early or you'll have to park around the campgrounds and walk further.

Distance
AllTrails says it's around 12.5 but my Garmin marked us as 11.34 round trip.

Elevation Gain
~1,700 feet with a max of ~10,500

Difficulty
There are no technical or super steep portions of this trail. The only difficult part is the distance.

The Hike
Fair warning, the first 2ish miles of this hike sucks. You are basically sharing a 4x4 road with vehicles and there isn't much to look at. Once you reach a little lake/pond crossing, it becomes significantly better as you are getting into a more wooded area and away from everyone else.

You'll hike another few miles that is slightly uphill and start to get some views of the mountains in the background. While this part of the trail is nice, it's the last 1-2 miles that make this trail. As you start to reach the lake, you will start crossing Coney Creek quite a bit and come across some smaller lakes before you reach the top. This entire area is very pretty and secluded.

About .5 miles from the lake, we ran into quite a bit of snow and had to go off the trail for a while. This shouldn't be a major issue as you basically follow the creek and go straight up. Once you reach the top, you'll have a very nice view of Coney Lake.

As we started to take a little break, we saw two very large bull moose start walking over the snow pack in the top right of the picture above. While that was happened, two cow (female) moose were on the opposite side of the lake drinking water.

We watched them for a few minutes until the bulls got about 30 yards from us and continued to keep coming. So we decided it was a good time to go.

Minus the first two miles of this hike, it was really good. We loved all of the streams and lakes towards the top. The fact that we saw 4 moose and a few elk made it that much better. We also only saw a handful of campers at the lake and hardly no one on the trail head when we started.

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.

Abyss Trail to Helms Lake

For this weekend's hike we continued to stalk the Fall colors before it's too late. After some Googling, we decided on the Abyss Trail head. This trail head is located on the Guanella Pass, not too far past Georgetown. To get there we actually took the long way in and it was a very pretty drive through the pass. 

The trail itself was ~11.6 miles with a 2,241 ft. elevation gain. Even though it's a decent elevation gain, there are very few steep sections, so it's a moderate hike from that perspective.

The first 2 miles or so is dense pine trees. There isn't much to see for this part but it's still kind of cool to see all of the trees and feel like you're in a forest. After the 2 mile marker, you then cross a little river and open up into a very pretty meadow. There were still quite a few Aspen trees changing colors but we were a week behind for prime foliage.

As you go through the valley you cross the creek a few more times and have pretty views of the water, trees, and surrounding mountains. It was a very peaceful hike both from the view and gradual incline perspective.

As you reach the bottom of the mountains, it opens up a little more and you get a glimpse of Helms Lake. Below is a picture of that. It was pretty but nothing amazing compared to so many other mountain lakes.

On our way back down, we got lucky and saw ~20 mountain goats hopping around on the side of the mountain. This was only about 1 mile or so from Helms Lake. It was really fun watching them move around but unfortunately they blended in to the background too much for a good picture.

Since we started fairly early in the morning we were shaded for a lot of the hike and the pictures weren't as bright. Below are a few more pictures headed back to the trail head.

All-in-all, I would recommend this hike. It has a good variety of scenery and wasn't too intense where you could easily enjoy the hike. I doubt it would be as nice if the trees weren't turning. I would also highly recommend going early as it becomes a mad house later during the day. We got the trail around 7:30 and left at 12:30. There were a handful of cars when we got there but it was primarily overnight campers. When we got back, cars were lined up for over a mile on the road.

Gore Creek Trail to Buffalo Pass

It's finally starting to feel like Fall in the mountains here in CO, which also means the trees are starting to turn. For this week's hike, Ali and I headed to Gore Creek Trail which is a few minutes from East Vail.  According to AllTrails, it's around 12.8 miles with a 3,172 feet vertical. After doing a little more roaming around/taking the wrong path one time, we were right at 14 miles with a 3,294 vertical.

From the trail head, you start going uphill pretty fast. For the first 10 minutes or so you hear some interstate noise but that fades out quickly and you are encompassed by Aspen trees. Below are a few pictures after the initial climb with the sun rising.

From there, the trail has some ups and downs, but overall it's a fairly gradual climb for the most part with a few sections being more intense than others. It's a very pretty hike since you follow the Gore Creek the majority of the time and you get views water, forest, and mountain peeks in both directions.

The last .75 mile or so is pretty brutal after hiking 6 miles to get there. It's a steady climb of ~900 feet until you get to the top of Buffalo Pass. From the top of the pass you can see Silverthorne on the other side as well as the valley you just hiked through from East Vail. As you can see from the picture below, Ali was a tad tired.

Since the sun was in our eyes the majority of the hike there, I took a few more pictures coming back to show the creek and a view of East Vail.

Overall I would highly recommend this hike. It's definitely on the more on the strenuous side due to the elevation gain and length, but the variety of views that it provided was well worth it.

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.

Turquoise Lakes

These last few weekends Ali and I have been on a solid hiking schedule so we decided to keep it up. Due to some potential weather issues further north and south, we decided to drive to Beaver Creek Resort for this hike.

The trail head is technically called Beaver Creek Trailhead and it's quite different from your average start point. We parked in the Gerald Ford parking garage and then walked up to the bottom of lift 10 where the trail technically starts. From here, if you look up the mountain to your right, you can see a maintenance shed and a few signs that lead towards Beaver Lake and the Five Senses Trail. This trail will go past some maintenance sheds, small creeks, and a very rich neighborhood until you finally get outside of the official resort and start your uphill trek to Beaver Lake.

The hike to Beaver Lake is a little under 3 miles but it's a solid uphill trek. Luckily the path is fairly shaded and you follow a creek the majority of the time so it was a nice change of pace from our 14er last week. This part of the trail can get fairly busy as families go to Beaver Lake a lot but once we moved past it, we only saw one other person all day. Below is a picture of Beaver Lake.

After you get past Beaver Lake, the trail takes a more wooded/gradual uphill route than the first part. You continue weave around a river the majority of the time which is very pretty and offered some good background noise. About 5 miles into the hike you start to come across quite a few valleys as well that look like a perfect location for deer/moose but unfortunately we only saw one deer all day.

The picture below is ~.25 miles from Lower Turquoise Lake and ~1 mile from Upper Turquoise Lake. We started to see a lot of wildflowers around this area which was very pretty.

Below is a picture of Upper Turquoise Lake. Overall it was a pretty nice lake but unfortunately the wildfires were fairly bad and there was quite a bit of smoke/haze in the air which made some of the views not as clear as usual.

All-in-all I really enjoyed the hike. As I mentioned previously, it was a great change of pace after doing a 13er and 14er the last few weeks. This trail was very wooded and had a lot of water with creeks and 3 lakes. We ended up hiking ~15.5 miles in total with around a 3,000 elevation gain. So it was definitely a long hike but since the elevation was lower, it didn't feel nearly as bad.

Pikes Peak

Since Ali and I knocked out a 13er last weekend, this weekend we decided to hit up a 14er. After doing some quick weather research, our best chance to not get wet was down south, so we headed to Pikes Peak.

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.