This past Saturday marked the first post-Winter weekend in which I was not travelling and had some free time.
Tiff and I decided to take a three hour drive west on I-70 to the Hanging Lake trail. This is a trail in which Tiff has done before but I have not. It is a short hike (1.2 miles each way), so a great warm up for the season to come.
The weather was mostly perfect for the entire hike. Temperatures were in the 60’s and the sun was out, though a large portion of the trail is shaded. When we reached the top at Hanging Lake, we were cooled off by a short, light rain. It was over by the time we were done our lunch and we enjoyed nice weather for the hike down as
well.
It can be steep at times, but again it is only 1.2 miles. The most challenging thing about the hike was the patches of melting snow and ice, making the trail sometimes both slippery and muddy.
The hike starts just off of I-70 along the RIVER and the bottom of a valley. The rocky trail quickly begins to ascend as you rapidly increase in elevation. Traffic on the trail was quite busy on a Saturday afternoon. We began a bit later in the day, so there were more people coming down the trail than going up. There are a series of seven bridges that help you in some way monitor your progress, though I did notice markers at the ¼ mile, ½ mile and 1 mile points.
All in all, a great first hike of the year.