Lincoln Mountain Open Space- both Loops

This hike is close to home located off Parker Road south near the Greenland Exit  and offers some nice views of the front range. Above the mountains were initially hidden with some clouds. This Douglas County Open space park offers two separate loops or you can do both.

Here is the signpost where you choose which loop to take. Lincoln Mountain Loop which is 2.5 miles each way or the Palmer Divide Ranch Loop that is 3.4 miles each way. The Palmer side has more foliage and trees to provide shade while the other side has a Pikes Peak view and more open.

This is the Mountain Loop hike with more open meadow areas. There were some nice wildflowers this time. It was surprising the bushes still had not leafed out. 

Some of the wildflowers.

The Lincoln Mountain Trail has some easy switchbacks to get to the Junction of the Mountain Loop.

You will climb a bit till you get to the top of Lincoln Mountain.  7300 ft

Then Pikes Peak comes into view.

We decided to try the other Palmer Loop as well. Here is the beginning of the Palmer Divide Ranch Loop.

It has more rocks and higher Pine Trees. Most of the horses did this side.

This is Dewey's Hill. A very nice wooded spot to get a break from the sun.

We climbed to the highest part of the trail - the West lower rim cutoff- to see some interesting rock formations.

Here is the view from the Rock formations. At this point we decided to turn around. If you do both loops you can get 9.1 miles.