Passes & Canyons Blog

Judy is very good at merging what I like to do with what she likes to do so we both have a good time, and hiking is one of those things.

Don’t get me wrong, I like hiking, too, but perhaps not as much as she does. So now and then she will suggest that we get on a motorcycle and ride out somewhere to a trailhead and then do a hike. That’s what we did on Saturday.

One of the best things Jefferson County has to offer is an extensive list of open space parks and such, so we ended up having to choose between many appealing options. We chose Mount Galbraith Park, which has a trailhead just about a mile west of where the Golden Gate Canyon Road turns off CO 93 on the north side of Golden.

It was a beautiful, sunny fall day as we got geared up, this time remembering to connect our bluetooth communicators, which we’ve made a habit of forgetting and thus have probably not used in two years. Go figure. We headed west on Hampden/US 285 and then by the time we turned north on C-470 it was already getting cooler and had also turned blustery. I hadn’t worn my sweatshirt under my jacket but had brought it along. I was figuring at this point I was glad of that.

North to Golden Gate Canyon Road and then west to the trailhead and oh, man, was that place packed. The parking lot was overflowing and people were parked all along the road for a good ways. Being on the V-Strom we just pulled right in the parking lot and got the best space you could ask for.

There are three main sections of trail in this park, along with a number of smaller, unofficial(?) ones. From the parking area you climb toward the top of Mount Galbraith and then another section can take you all the way down into Golden or you can circle the top of the mountain and then return the way you came when you reconnect. We did the latter.

Climbing the first portion you get to where you have a really nice view of the canyon road below, as you can see in that photo. Then as you get higher you get views of North Table Mountain, South Table Mountain, and finally the whole metro area. Circling around the mountain top counter-clockwise, as we did, you get over on the west side and a whole area of unfamiliar hills, with nothing particularly dramatic. It took a while before I realized what we were seeing was the uphill area running down to where US 6 runs up Clear Creek Canyon. Now, Clear Creek Canyon is very narrow and the walls are pretty sheer but from this perspective you would never have known it was even there. The only thing that finally tipped me off was when we saw the cell towers on Lookout Mountain and I put two and two together.

So it was a good hike, about 5 miles altogether, and boy did it get windy! We had been getting blown around on the bike as we arrived and I was figuring we were really going to get blasted when we left. Nothing to do but to do it, though, so we climbed back on the V-Strom and headed out. And glory, glory, it really wasn’t all that windy down at this level now and we had a very pleasant ride home. What a really good way to spend a Saturday afternoon.

Biker Quote for Today

If the countryside seems boring, stop, get off your bike, and go sit in the ditch long enough to appreciate what was there before the asphalt came.