I went on my second hike in as many weeks yesterday. It ended up being just me and Randy who went. Which was fine, but it left us without a photographer and neither of us had cameras to take with us. Luckily the world wide web is a wonderful place to find many many things, including pictures of hiking trails! There are some pictures to be found at
http://boulderrunning.com/gallery/HeilValleyWe met Thursday after work in Longmont, and that's when we found out that no one else was going with us. We went out the Foothills Parkway, and South to Lefthand Canyon, and then headed up the canyon. We passed a sign that said Heil Ranch, but Randy didn't recognize the road so we kept on going up the canyon. After turning onto a 4x4 road, and then trying to find a trail at a Buckingham Park, we ended up going back down to the original entrance. This
google map link shows where the turn off is.
While we were driving up the dirt road to the trailhead, we passed a guy on a mountain bike, who I'm sure got quite a bit of dust. He passed us on the trail a couple times (up and down), and Randy thought he recognized him from work. And sure enough, the guy sits about 10 feet away from Randy at work!
When we made it to the parking area, Randy recognized everything and we were at the right place.
Sing at the Parking Lot
We started our hike at about 6:00pm on the Lichen Loop. This trail was nice because it is closed to bikers, and we didn't see another soul on it. About half way around the loop it meets up with the main trail called Wapiti Trail. We felt like we had quite a bit of hiking left in us, so we headed up it. The Wapiti trail is a well maintained trail and we saw a number of mountain bikers and a few other hikers on it. While hiking we were treated to some beautiful views of the nearby mountains and the valley below. Next time someone with a camera needs to come with us!
After about an hour of hiking we decided it was time to head back. Steffenie and Lexa were supposed to be getting here from Texas and we wanted to try and be home at about the same time they were. They ended up beating us, but we weren't too far behind.
It was a good hike. We saw a rabbit and 4 whitetail deer. But most importantly I felt a lot better on the hike. The trail wasn't as steep as the last hike, and hopefully I'm getting more used to the atlititude. I'd like to go back sometime and do the entire Wapiti trail and Ponderosa Loop that it connects to. I'm not worried though, because we have many, many hikes ahead of us!
If you're interested, here is the link to the
Heil Valley Ranch offical webiste. And here is the link to the
pdf of the trailmap. Enjoy!
