Sunday, June 13, 2010

Gregory Canyon

The weather has been absolutely perfect lately, so you know Jo and I had to take advantage of it with a hike.  We have been meaning to explore the trails in Boulder a bit more, so we chose Gregory Canyon, a popular Boulder hike right outside of Chautauqua.
Everything is green, green, green right now, just like we like it.  Here are the Flatirons, in all their Flatiron glory.

Jo and I parked at the parking lot at Chautauqua and walked the half mile to the Gregory Canyon trailhead.  Why? Because we are cheap and didn't want to pay the $5 for a parking permit, that's why.  It's alright, though.  Walking through the tall grass sprinkled with wildflowers was lovely.

There was a cheerful little stream we took some time to play around in before starting on the trail. 

If you haven't noticed, Jo collects trailheads like old ladies collect Hummel figurines.  Here's another one for the books. 

Trail shot!  This is the trail we started out on, the Saddle Rock trail.  Our plan was to link up to the Gregory Canyon trail and do a nice 6 mile loop. The hot weather emphasized the pine fragrance beautifully, making every breath a delight to take.


Since the day was so hot, Jo took a moment to cool off in the shade beneath this rock.  I really do love this shot.  He looks so...zen here. 


We hiked up and up and eventually made it to Saddle Rock.  Of course, the first thing Jo did was to scramble up to the top like a mountain goat.  I'm not nearly as confident on rocks and my style of ascending was more like a hippo's.


The view from the top was awesome.  Boulder is all spread out below, looking pretty as a picture.


Jo and I hung out on the rock and took a breather while enjoying the way the breeze felt on our faces.  The view from behind us was pretty as well; lots of trees and the first Flatiron off to the left.


Eventually, the trail beckoned and we left our rock to continue on.  It took us awhile to get up this portion of the trail because there were tons of wildflowers, and since Jo and I are still working on documenting all the wildflowers in Colorado, we diligently took pictures of the flowers we didn't have photos of.

Here they are:











Another trailshot, because I love them.

And one more.  The hillside full of flowers is not showing up on camera that well, but in real life it was so nice.


 A few random shots.


Here's a random creepy house in Gregory Canyon.  We learned that it has asbestos in the roof, so it just stands abandoned, looking all spooky out in the woods.

We took a break next to the creepy house and had some of our homemade gorp.

At this point the trail was all downhill because we had already done the hard part.

One more trailshot.  This is in Gregory Canyon.  It was super lush and green and beautiful.  There is a stream off to the right that we followed all the way down.  Lovely.

After we made it back, we reluctantly left the trail and walked through Chautauqua, admiring the poppies that peppered the long grass with their bright orange flowers.

It was a beautiful day and a beautiful hike.  I just wish we had stayed out longer because is was so freakin' nice out.  Oh well, I can't wait for the next!

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