Hike: Eagle Peak

Well, for some reason sleep evaded me last night so I decided to catch up on some posts...

On Memorial Day we met up with family visiting Colorado Springs and hiked/scrambled up Eagle Peak which has an elevation of 9,368 ft. I have to admit it was a challenge for me - probably the hardest hike I've done here so far... but the views at the top of Pike's Peak and the Air Force Academy below were worth the climb (click picture for full size).

Including the walk from the parking lot up to the trailhead, it was ~2,000 ft of elevation gain in a little over 1.5 miles. This steep trail is 3 miles round trip (in and out, not a loop) and is mostly loose rock (read material great for slipping and sliding), and includes a nice yet short segment through a meadow of aspens, and scrambling up a boulder field to get to the peak.

One of the several waterfalls along the trail.

I loved hearing and seeing the creek and its little waterfalls along the trail. Then of course the views from the top were the best part:

Pike's Peak

View of Air Force Academy below - we started from that crescent shaped parking lot.

Rock formation near Eagle Peak that we scrambled up. Living on the edge I tell you.

We had fun climbing to the top of that rock formation pictured above... it was scarier getting back down that it was going up for sure. See that tree in the foreground? That is a very tall tree... and this formation is fairly narrow.

I have a bunch more hikes to blog about... hopefully I'll get them posted soon but it's hard to keep up!