Pictures of a hike in the foothills

The water is running high in Clear Creek so I haven't pulled out my gold panning stuff yet. I'll wait for the water to subside a bit. Until then though I've been putting some miles on my hiking shoes and hopefully in the process some pounds off of the midsection. Last Sunday and today I went for a hike on a trail called Beaver Brook that runs roughly parallel to Hwy 6 and I-70. I've driven both routes and looked up into the hills and thought "hmm... I wonder what's up on top of the ridge over there..." After hiking around over these past two weekends I have a better idea of the area.

The atmospheric conditions were not the best for taking pictures due to the smoke blowing into Colorado from the wildfires in AZ and NM, but I was able to get a few pictures like this one looking down into Clear Creek canyon.

Most of trail was nice and mellow like this stretch. A person can walk at a pretty good clip when the trail is clear of brush & weeds and fairly level.

However there were some places where you had to watch yourself. If a person were not paying attention they would be taking a fast trip down a 50 foot drop.

There were also some places with rock slides. At least this isn't like it is back home where rock slides also usually places where you find those shrub/tree plants (alder?). Aww man those things suck. It's bad when you have to watch out for loose rock but then you have to crawl through those branches without slipping off. Then again, back in Idaho if you fall down you won't land on cactus, so I guess it's a wash.

What makes a hike fun for me is if I can see some cool stuff and/or cool views. I like this vantage point looking down on Clear Creek.

If your driving through this area you may come to the conclusion that it is almost 'desert-like' but tucked away in some of the gulches are little creeks. These places are kinda neat for me because the plants that grow in these areas are more similar to those found back home.

Along the trail were places that you could climb up to and get a birds eye view of the area.

Here's a pic from the top of that rock formation looking down the other side.

I love well marked trails, especially when I can see how far I have slugged along.

Last weekend I only made it to the three mile marker. I felt like a chump because I figured I could have pushed myself to walk it a bit further. So this morning I got up early and hit the trail with the intent of walking into the Gudy Gaskill loop which would be a total walking distance of about 13 miles.
The air quality was much better this time around. The white caps of the high country were in clear view this morning.

I saw a lot of elk sign near the area where the GG loop departed from the main trail. About a half mile before this trail marker I jumped an elk. Actually it may have been the combination of my smelly self and a lady jogger that scared the young bull. That elk was movin' though, it definitely didn't want any of me or the fast moving lady. It was weird because in this area the trail was chewed up to a powder in parts. I was thinking "geeze this must be the elk superhighway." Then a few minutes later an elk goes bombing right past me. However that lady was moving at a good clip herself. There are a lot of health nuts in Colorado and a few of these folks really get into trail running. I would have to get into really awesome shape to do that wackiness, plus I would probably get tired and fold/roll my ankle so bad I would be out of commission for weeks.

After departing the main trail onto the GG loop the terrain opened up into some neat meadows.
That's it for this post, I will post some future hikes if I can get some good views. If I get some nice 5lb nuggets gold panning I'll post some images of those, but don't count it as most of my stuff you need a magnifying lens to see.