Hike #31 & 32 2021

June 19th, 2021

Hike #31

This was our first hike of the morning and as usual we began early. Although this is normal for us, there are a few reasons why early is better at this particular trail. For one, this is a very popular trail and gets busy quickly. It’s also not a very wide trail which can become tedious when we’re constantly pulling over to allow people to pass (for hikers and mountain bikers). Though this is an off-leash trail, for peace of mind we keep the dogs on leash due to the area being notorious for rattlesnakes. Threat of snakes is another reason why we get there early in order to hopefully prevent run-ins with them. Finally, we wake up early to, of course, beat the heat!

We’re happy to report that we were the first ones on the trail, bright and early at 5:15am! The sunrise also gave us a treat with the pink clouds you’ll see in the picture below.

This trail has a lot of history which dates back to the mid 1850s when the Ute Indians used to use it as a primary travel route. In the years that followed, settlers received the go-ahead from the Forest Service to build and reside here temporarily, though individuals lived in this area until the 1960s. They constructed 4 houses and other small buildings, along with a sawmill which supplied lumber for the surrounding areas, including Fort Collins. There are also said to be old mine shafts somewhere in this area, but we’ve never seen them. In the early 2000s and twice in 2012, there were fires that ran their course through the area. And again in 2013, heavy flooding damaged the trail (and other surrounding trails/areas) and had to be repaired. There are still lots of signs to remind you of what once was, including stand-alone brick fireplaces and remnants of the sawmill.

The reason we chose to do this trail today is because of the poppies that bloom during this time of year. Most of them surround the old ranch houses, but over the years have began to spread out into different areas. Along the trail are also lots of lilac bushes.

There are several stream crossings on this trail and up until recently did not have bridges across them. We were here just a few months ago and there weren’t any bridges, so we were pleasantly surprised to find that the Forest Service had installed log bridges sometime within the last few months. It’s always nice to have a way to keep the dogs from getting too dirty on trail!

Browse through the pictures below of our first hike among the lilacs and poppies, then continue on to read about the hike that followed! If you’re wondering who the little brown dog is, that’s Lucky. We’ve dog sat her for many years now and we’re currently watching her for a few days. She’s always a joy to have!

Hike #32

We typically don’t do two hikes in one day, but since we only did a few miles on the previous hike and we were curious about how the wildflowers were doing a little higher up, we decided to drive a little farther to another location. This is probably the trail that we do the most in any given year, there are a couple different routes you can take that offer varying mountain views, and the trail itself is wide. Major bonus is that we’ve only ever seen a couple people on this trail at any given time and today we didn’t see anyone.

We went for an additional couple miles and the dogs seemed to be quite happy to be on one of our favorite trails.