I had Stressed a Bit About Where to Take A Winter Hike Today.

Looking at the snow on the ground, it seemed a bit challenging, but the sun was coming out, and knowing that there was a cold front on the way, I thought about some options to stay on track with this web site.

Option 1: I could just use the hike I took on the Intermann Trail on Sunday with a couple of friends as my weekly hike. But that had been a very short, and didn’t take very many photos. So I considered taking myself back up there alone and taking more photos.

Option 2: I had errands to do in town that could be done on foot. I needed to go to the Post Office to mail a FantaFaces mask and then continue on to City Hall to pay for some Festival permits. There is a creek walks that starts at City Hall and goes past the Chamber of Commerce, an urban trail that I have never been on other than a short piece of it by Memorial Park.

Option 3: I could drive to a nearby Park or trail and hike in the sunshine by myself. But I am sure I will be doing some of these close hikes in the future when the area is prettier, or if the weather is really bad for a full week or I am just feeling like doing a shorter hike for some reason, like the Art Festival is happening soon.

Option 4: Call my friend I hike with the most and check to see if she was up for taking a hike somewhere today. No answer. So I left a message about why I had called and set a time deadline for her to call me back. Moments later my phone rang. She was really excited about the prospect of going for a hike today. In her mediation she had asked for Spirit to just show up and take her somewhere beautiful today. (She told me that later when we were driving to the State Park.)

After considering some options, including some I had considered for my alone hike, I suggested we go to Cheyenne Mountain State Park and check it out. As neither of us had ever been there, partially because we hate paying a fee to hike, we decided to go there today. I quickly Googled it, and saw that there were many trails. She was excited by the adventure and I felt pretty sure it would have some sunny trails from the little bit I learned on its web site.

So we agreed to meet at a Safeway parking lot at noon and went to gather our hiking gear and some trail food.

I decided I needed to mail the FantaFaces Mask before I went, so dashed to the Post Office and did that. That was a really smart decision, as we finished our hike too late for me to have gotten to a Post Office in time to mail it afterwards.

We met up and took just one car and headed south on Nevada Ave. and found the park. A beautiful Visitor Center with a very helpful person working there was a good beginning. They had a free map that showed many trails and she explained there were markers and maps all along the trails to guide us.

Many of you know of Cheyenne Mountain because that is where NORAD is housed and recently they tracked Santa Claus on his Christmas journey.

Although the sun hid most of the day, it was still quite warm. In fact we each decided to remove one layer of the jackets we were wearing even before starting out on the trails.

For most of the hike, we could hear the gunfire from soldiers training at Fort Carson most of the time. And some of the trail faced highway 115, we could hear traffic noise on those sections. Not our favorite things to hear while hiking.

Still we found places to stand or sit and just BE in Nature.

We discovered this bench to sit on for lunch that gave us 360 degree view off to the East of the Prairie, South some hills, Cheyenne Mountain behind us and a beautiful meadow to the north. Perfect!

Some places were icy and snowy and others were very muddy and our hiking boots gained about 5 pounds, or so it felt, as we slogged through those areas.
But never too slippery or steep to feel as if we needed to turn back.

We both have a hard time ending a hike and always want to see what is just around the bend. Which is how we found this bench for our lunch break.

Then we did head back, but on a different trail with different views and terrain.

This hike reminded us both of another hike we will take later in the year in Aiken Canyon.