Tuesday, October 11, 2011

Squeezing what's left out of the good weather

The weather is still glorious, but this time of year you know you are on borrowed time. It won't be long before the beautiful golden leaves fall and go brown, the days get short and the snow inevitably will fall. We decided to meet up in Boulder with Sarah & Pieces to try out a new hiking trail. We've hiked the small loop at Hall Ranch a number of times, the NCAR area hiking is a bit tough for the kiddos, so we opted to try the Boy Scout Trail up Flagstaff Mountain in Boulder.

A new area for us, but online reports showed a manageable amount of elevation gain and some good views. The loop was a bit over a mile with a couple of add-ons that we could tack on if everyone was enjoying the day. After a false start at the wrong parking lot, we all got unloaded and headed out to explore a new trail.

Cooper hits the ground running. Literally, he just runs in a direction, sometimes its the right direction.

From Boy Scout Trail in Boulder Hike


We hit the first "add-on", which was May's overlook. Cooper posed near the rock field.

From Boy Scout Trail in Boulder Hike


Then started scrambling up the rocks.

From Boy Scout Trail in Boulder Hike



From Boy Scout Trail in Boulder Hike



From Boy Scout Trail in Boulder Hike



From Boy Scout Trail in Boulder Hike


and Pieces decided to follow suit

From Boy Scout Trail in Boulder Hike


When Jill finally caught up to Coop, he obliged us with a pose

From Boy Scout Trail in Boulder Hike


Sarah and Pieces made their way up too

From Boy Scout Trail in Boulder Hike


Jill channels her inner-Dr. LK for the mandatory big arms photo overlooking Boulder

From Boy Scout Trail in Boulder Hike


And Cooper took off down the trail again. This is the view most of us get of Cooper.

From Boy Scout Trail in Boulder Hike


I was on Lauren duty for the day, as always she was just happy to be along with the group

From Boy Scout Trail in Boulder Hike


Cooper making his way up the final climb of the day

From Boy Scout Trail in Boulder Hike


Despite her cries of "Want to go to Tahoe", we convinced Pieces to hike out the last bit.

From Boy Scout Trail in Boulder Hike


Overall a pretty decent hiking trail. The one issue is that we ended up paying $5 / car (2 cars) to park as we were in my work rental car and Sarah in the Tahoe, neither of which have Boulder County tags. The area got pretty busy by the time we left, but we only saw one other group out on the trail. The trail definitely gave some great views looking north and east over the Boulder bubble, could make for some amazing sunrises there I'm sure.

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