I don’t always succeed, but I attempt to make it out to hike about five times a week when the weather and my career allows. Living in the foothills of Colorado really lends itself to outdoor activities. One of my favorite local trails is today’s highlight: the Antelope trail (and on to the Bitterbrush trail) at Hall Ranch in Lyons, Colorado.
Hall Ranch is a fairly popular destination, though the Antelope trailhead is not as well known. (And with only eight parking spots, let’s hope it stays that way.) It’s a relatively short hike – about 1.8 miles from the trailhead to the top of the mountain where it connects with the larger Bitterbrush trail, but it’s a fairly intense climb with some rewarding views of the mountains and a myriad of wildflowers.
Anyone who has known me for any length of time knows by now that not only do I love hiking, I have a count of how many hikes I get done each year.
I started keeping track a few years ago. At that point I had to come to admit that the over-consumption of all of these delicious craft beers in Colorado had left me a few dozen pounds heavier than I ever wanted to be in this lifetime. At the time, I was working for company where my boss and close friend was an avid mountain cyclist, and was himself working on a goal to get in at least 200 rides that year. I remember watching him get closer and closer to his goal that year, realizing that if someone like him – who was a good three decades older than me – could reach these type of health and fitness goals, there was no good reason I couldn’t, too.
Not much of a cyclist myself, I started hiking instead, often going out to one of the many local trails near our office in Boulder. Combining my almost daily exercise with a rigorous ketogenic diet, I ended up loosing 44lbs, and now am in the best shape and health of my life. So, here we are years later, and even though that particular friendship has passed, I’m still maintaining that habit I picked up from him and tracking my yearly hiking count as a reminder of what I have achieved.
I have a separate blog dedicated to each day of hiking (mostly just photos at this point), so I don’t intend on bogging down this page with all of my hikes, but I will share all of my new trips and interesting finds as they come up – and I’ll included my current count here, too, as I go along.
Today’s hike count: day 81.
AllTrails difficulty rating: moderate.
Enjoying my hiking photos? Click below to navigate to other entries, or check out my extended hiking photography blog (more photos, less text) here.