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Falcon Hiking Colorado's Front Range: Fort Collins to Colorado Springs
Profiles of 35 great hikes along the Rocky Mountain front from Fort Collins south to Colorado Springs. Experts and novice hikers alike will find overnights and day hikes with spectacular scenery, abundant wildlife, wildflowers, and fascinating landscapes.
183 pages, Paperback
First published March 1, 2003
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
May 17, 2010
No wonder Colorado supposedly has the skinniest people in the country. Forget Hollywood, move to Denver, you can't trip without falling over a trail and of course, wanderlust will send you poking along to see what's at the other end.
How lucky are we to have so many places to go walk off angst? This book gives a good solid handful of possibilities to go hike.
As someone else mentioned, the elevation chart is nice. I would suggest also referring to park maps and local maps. Try out one of their easier trails and see how easy it is for you, and gauge the rest of the trails in the book from there.
A word of advice:
If you're not in reasonable condition, work up some endurance on smaller local trails around Denver - start with flatter areas like Chatfield, Cherry Creek, the Sante Fe bike path, Castlewood Canyon, Waterton Canyon... there are a lot of parks and open spaces along the front range that are not painfully hilly, where you can enjoy a natural setting and build up some conditioning before scrambling up a hillside.
If you're relatively fresh to altitude or just not a seasoned hiker, finding a nice comfortable hiking niche can be a painful experience. Check park maps, consider distance and elevation gain, ask around.
That said, most loop trails will have a steep gradient to one side, and a longer more gradual ascent on the other. Unmentioned in the book, Deer Creek's longer trail begins off one such loop. If you head north, the trail is a gradual ascent. If you go south, as the book directs, you'll find yourself making that ascent in half the distance. This is good to know, as, if you're not in good condition (and don't let the cheerful hikers and bikers coming the other way fool you!), wheezing on the side of a trail may put you off enjoying many of our nicer hikes!
A bunch of open space areas and trails are missing completely. Lair of the Bear, Waterton Canyon, Roxborough State Park and a couple other open space and state parks... Castlewood Canyon might be considered "front range" as, they've included a couple 14'rs in this as well.
Overall:
I would browse a few more Colorado hiking books before settling on one. There are some tips and information in this book that may be quite useful to you, overall, but I wouldn't consider it the definitive guide to hiking the front range.
How lucky are we to have so many places to go walk off angst? This book gives a good solid handful of possibilities to go hike.
As someone else mentioned, the elevation chart is nice. I would suggest also referring to park maps and local maps. Try out one of their easier trails and see how easy it is for you, and gauge the rest of the trails in the book from there.
A word of advice:
If you're not in reasonable condition, work up some endurance on smaller local trails around Denver - start with flatter areas like Chatfield, Cherry Creek, the Sante Fe bike path, Castlewood Canyon, Waterton Canyon... there are a lot of parks and open spaces along the front range that are not painfully hilly, where you can enjoy a natural setting and build up some conditioning before scrambling up a hillside.
If you're relatively fresh to altitude or just not a seasoned hiker, finding a nice comfortable hiking niche can be a painful experience. Check park maps, consider distance and elevation gain, ask around.
That said, most loop trails will have a steep gradient to one side, and a longer more gradual ascent on the other. Unmentioned in the book, Deer Creek's longer trail begins off one such loop. If you head north, the trail is a gradual ascent. If you go south, as the book directs, you'll find yourself making that ascent in half the distance. This is good to know, as, if you're not in good condition (and don't let the cheerful hikers and bikers coming the other way fool you!), wheezing on the side of a trail may put you off enjoying many of our nicer hikes!
A bunch of open space areas and trails are missing completely. Lair of the Bear, Waterton Canyon, Roxborough State Park and a couple other open space and state parks... Castlewood Canyon might be considered "front range" as, they've included a couple 14'rs in this as well.
Overall:
I would browse a few more Colorado hiking books before settling on one. There are some tips and information in this book that may be quite useful to you, overall, but I wouldn't consider it the definitive guide to hiking the front range.
June 1, 2009
Excellent guide to day hikes outside of Denver. The information is well-laid out and very specific about what each trail is like. I find the graph showing beginning and ending altitude very useful.
September 18, 2011
Great reference guide for hiking the Front Range. Of course, I like Boulder County the best. That is where I live. :))
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews