i veer left off the road onto the sleepy lion trail. it’s still early and i’m hoping all lions are feeling lazy and sleeping in, but sleeping somewhere i can take a couple pictures from. i do in fact want to see a cat in the wild but it scares me to death. i know they consider solo hikers a breakfast delicacy, so every few minutes i look over my shoulder, expecting to see a large shadowy figure stalking me. every crevasse in the rock outcrops i pass is scanned, expecting to see a round head with eyes affixed on my every move. they would blend in perfectly with the local rock. you’d have to be pretty good to spot them. i’m sure they’ve seen me on past hikes. i should whistle or talk to myself so i don’t sneak up and surprise one, but what i don’t want is for them to hear me ¼ mile away and run off. i must see them and take a photograph, so i’ll take my chances as a ninja hiker. makes me really wonder who’s the stalker and who’s the prey. didn’t see any mountain lion though. pretty uneventful along the trail.
i turn onto the buttonrock trail and into hall ranch. not far along the trail, i ditch the silly thing and head south into a steep gulch. the forest is rich and healthy, and hard to get a clear view of any surrounding area. some scrambling put me on a ridge where i could climb some rocks and see around. the summit of coffintop was just ahead! but it wasn’t. i climbed this “false summit” and realized i still had a few more hills to climb and descend before the actual summit. keep in mind that my gps is still out of commission, otherwise there’d obviously be no question of where i was. after finally reaching the actual ridgeline of coffintop, a relatively short jaunt up and the summit was mine.
the views and weather were good. there was nothing up here to signify the summit. just me. to the NE, waaaaayyyyy out there was indian lookout. and then after that i’d still have another 5 miles of backtracking to black beauty.
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| indian lookout, waaaaayyyyy out there |
my bearing set and back into the woods i go. this time i skirted coffintop’s “false summits” and came upon a road. let me back up…i came upon a fence with signs that were facing the other way, meaning i was on the wrong side of the fence. the signs said stuff about the land being open space but not for public use. keep in mind that i never saw any signs or fences when i left the trail. but here’s a nice fence with maybe 5 of these signs i can see from one spot. maybe they should disperse the signs better so i’d know if i was on forbidden land or not. i’m sure boulder wouldn't miss one of these signs.
the road meets up with the nighthawk trail which i follow until i have a decision to make: continue on the trail for another 3+ miles until i’m at the foot of indian lookout, or go off trail for ½ mile until i’m at the foot of indian lookout. again, there were no signs or fencing. well, there was a sign but i was a few hundred feet away from it when i went off the trail and i was going away from it. that makes it better, right? when i’m out there i feel this entitlement for being such an awesome hiker. not very often does a person like me come along, so i feel like the plants and soil would want me to walk on them. the whole time on off a trail i’m very cognizant of lnt rules, always making an attempt to step around flowers, cacti, large plants, small plants, and i try not to break branches when i’m squeezing between trees. i could go on but the point is that i’m very careful and the few folks like me that would go off trail are so few that the impact on the environment is virtually nonexistent. the only thing i worry about is scaring off an animal and it runs onto a road right into a wrangler going 75 mph. then i’d feel pretty bad about being off trail. in this case i chose to go take the shortcut. i’m sure some will not agree with my actions. tough.
the shortcut took me through a prairie dawg colony and past the trail. i immediately started up and around indian lookout to try and approach him from the north. the south would have a fun class 4 scramble but i didn’t trust my tibia. the brush is thick and there are some mule deer hanging around. i’ll see these guys a few times in the day. they let me get pretty close. They must know i’m pretty nonthreatening guy. but can these guys tell the difference between a hiking pole and a rifle? i guess they know enough to be in a place where hunting is prohibited. smart deer living a chill life. i like it.
the face i climbed was steep and sits right over a good chunk of the trail. luckily most of its users were on bikes and bikers don’t typically turn their head ever to look around, which is why i prefer my feet. i still had to book it up because my back was facing the trail and all i need is some weekend ranger grilling me for being on “public” land that i shouldn’t be. didn’t i see the sign? well, no.
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| the route up |
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| coffintop in the distance |
it’s a tough climb but once on the ridge it’s a very short walk up to the summit. there were surprisingly great views in almost every direction, even though it’s not a very tall mountain. i could see lvlt, denver, boulder and maybe even pikes peak. there was nothing on the summit to welcome me except the world below my feet. i’ll take it! but down i must go.
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| the view north |
down the slope that faces the trail, there is nothing for cover except a tree every 100 feet. i high tail it, trying to stay on the faint and narrow game trails, through the awful prickling bushes, stopping at each tree to take an end to end view of the trail and parking lot through my binoculars. no sign of the nature fuzz. i’m finally down to the last tree and all that’s left is a 20 second sprint to the trail. a biker just passed heading away from me but coming out of the trees on the trail is a walker. wasting no time, i “sprint” to the trail and jump on pretending like i’d been on it the whole time. there was a bend in the trail where i guess he didn’t see me running through the grasses and plants. as we got closer to each other i noticed he had a name tag on. i was listening to my mp3 player so i could avoid hearing anything he’d have to say, so long as i could walk by him without confrontation. sure enough, we made eye contact and the park’s volunteer was none the wiser; i think. after about 10 feet i was turning around to take his picture when i saw he was turning around to look me over. i casually took a picture of the mountain i had just climbed and then turned to put some more distance between us.
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| leave me be, volunteer ranger |
the rest of the hike back was long and uneventful. there were a lot of hikers of all range. an overweight couple that was maybe 1.5 miles from the parking lot asked me if it was worth it to keep going to the overlook (another mile perhaps). hell yeah it’s worth it, i said. you should have seen the views i had 5 miles away. it’s worth it just to have come 1.5 miles from the parking lot. it will always be worth it.
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| you again? |
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| my retirement |
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| hawt! |
the successful climb was topped off with grub from my second favorite mexi-joint. life is good.
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