Manitou Springs Incline- 2500 steps in 2 miles!

We drove to climb the Manitou Incline in the middle of the week after trying on Saturdays. It is just too crazy busy to find a parking space.  This pic tells of some of the people trying to climb that were out of shape.

As you look up stairs as far as you can see.

At the halfway point they give you the opportunity to quit and take the Barr trail down from here.

I decided to take my poles and they really helped on some of the steeper steps. It took me 70 minutes and my friend did it in an hour.

When you get to the top you take the Barr Trail down. It is much more gradual of a descent and pretty with trees and rocks.

It was foggy and so helped with the heat. I would recommend to do this in the spring or fall. Summer it gets too hot.

Finally we could see the town in the distance.

Parking is very difficult. Turn right at this sign on Ruxton Avenue.  This is past the parking lot for the cog railway where you cannot park.  It is all the way at the end of the street.  This lot is for the hiking.

Boulder Lake- Silverthorne

Boulder lake is located in the Eagles Nest Wilderness near Silverthorne. This is a moderate trail 5.7 miles round trip with 1,365 elevation gain.

The trail travels through montane and subalpine forests to the lake. Lodgepole pines were attacked by pine beetle in areas.

We passed a roaring waterfall along the way.

Turn left onto the Boulder Creek Trail.

There are areas of water and lots of wildflowers.

Nice views along the way.

Finally the Lake. It was a great place for lunch.

We saw four moose in a meadow with willows about 1/4 mile from the lake. A great ending to the hike.

Chicago Lakes Trail- Mount Evans Wilderness

Chicago Lakes are in the Mount Evans Wilderness area. This hike has many interesting sites along the way. Because it was a Saturday, we got an early start. We parked at the   trailhead to avoid walking all around Echo Lake.

Here is Echo Lake , quiet and still. When we finished the hike it was crazy busy.

The trail begins through a wooded trail after you leave the lake.

Already there are nice views of the mountains.

Soon you will come to a wide road. This you take for about a mile and leads to the Chicago creek reservoir fishing area.

This is the map. I took a picture as you cant find this online.

As the trail continues the mountains quite close on your left are beautiful.

Walking through some high willows.

Scrambling over rocks begins and will get more adventurous.

Here is an old forest fire area coming back to life.

The wildflowers were awesome this year from all the rain we have been getting.

Here you need to climb over some boulders and it gets interesting. At this point we turned back after getting to the first lake. There is another lake further up about 1/2 a mile.

Chicago Lower Lake- still snow on parts!!

Here shows some of the bunches of mud we had to walk through.

The view was totally worth the hike. Total distance is 4.2 miles each way to lower, 4.8 to upper.