The weekend started with a flick at the Boulder Outdoor Cinema. Every Friday and Saturday night in the summer, a parking lot downtown is roped off for great, classic movies. We went and saw The Graduate under the stars (and some clouds).
Saturday was our hike day. We decided to explore more in the Gregory Canyon/Green Mountain area right at the edge of town. We parked at the parking lot at the end of Baseline and hiked up the Saddle Rock trail. On the way up there were lots of ridges of good rock just bursting out of the landscape. We, of course, had to climb over many of them to test them out in our hiking boots. About halfway up the trail there was a junction marked for climber access. Again, we of course had to explore. After a very steep half mile or so, we found ourselves at the back of the first flatiron. We have tried several times to link up the first Flatiron with trails to the west of it, but we never had any luck. Now we know how it's done!
We hiked back down the trail to continue the Saddle Rock trail. From there we joined up with the E.M. Greenman trail to the summit of Green Mountain. We never did decide what formation Saddle Rock was. Perhaps that's a problem for another weekend...
The summit of Green Mountain was beautiful and there was a really cool marker at the top that identified over two dozen peaks on the horizon. At 8,100 feet this mountain is the highest around, at least until you get into the Indian Peaks Wilderness.
To make a circuit we hit the Ranger Trail back towards the parking lot. This trail then links up with the Gregory Canyon trail which goes around the back of the amphitheater (good climbing area). We decided to check out a spur trail heading up to Crown Rock. After another fairly steep half mile, the trail actually linked up to the Flagstaff Mountain road and subsequent trail. It was fun to take the Flagstaff Mountain trail back to the car because we've seen it so much from other vantage points around town.
Overall, the hike was 7 miles of trails, but we were out for the better part of day with all our scrambling and exploring. It was so fun to be able to explore so much right in our backyard.
For our evening's entertainment, we headed out to Longmont (10 miles away) to visit the Boulder County Fair. The cows were cool but it seemed that everything else was already closed up for the night.
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