After living in Boulder for several years, I started to accumulate a decent number of photos of the local foothills. There are 3 8000ft peaks on the west side of town, Green Mountain, Bear Peak, and South Boulder Peak. The Flatirons are on the east side of Green Mountain and it is the most accessible peak for myself living downtown. As of July 2003, I had climbed Green 31 times, all with at least 2300ft of elevation gain. I've only climbed the other two 4 times each, but in 3 cases I did them along with Green Mountain starting and ending on my front porch and involving 5000+ft and 15-18 miles of hiking. One time I was actually in good enough shape to enjoy it!
Here is a garden-variety photo of the ubiquitous Flatirons from
Chatauqua Meadows.
Flagstaff Mountain is a 6900ft summit about 1.5 miles north of
Green. It is the first high point on the west edge of Boulder
south of Boulder Creek. Many times I've hiked over Flagstaff to
get to Green. It's a little longer, but also has a higher
percentage of non-pavement walking from my apartment. Here is
sunrise from the trail on Flagstaff on September 15, 2000. The
Walker Ranch fire had been burning for a few days just on the
other side of the foothills, which helped the sunrise colors.
I was hiking up Green Mountain to get a closer look at the fire.
Fortunately for everyone involved, the fire (actually, just
smoke) wasn't much to look at, but I saw a ton of wildlife.
Here is a deer that was nice enough to pose for me, one of a
dozen deer I saw in 5 different places. This is a popular
trail, so the deer aren't very scared of people.
I also saw a red fox and an Albert's squirrel. The squirrel was
acting too squirrely to photograph, but I did catch the fox.
(For you Boulderites, this is near the start of the Flagstaff
Mountain summit road.)
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File last modified: 08 January 2005
