Golden Gate State Park Run

Golden Gate has been on my list for a long time, so I was excited for the chance to run up there. The park is south of Boulder, about halfway to Golden, but then you travel west and up to about 8,000 feet. There are many campgrounds and dozens of trails. The area is famous for trail running as it hosts the annual Golden Gate Dirty Thirty, a 30-mile, 7000ft run each June.

Dan and I planned to basically run the circumference of the south side of the park. With all our little route-finding escapades we managed to cover 18-20 miles of trail. At the end, Dan ran ahead and did a bigger loop back to the car than I did. So, he was on the upper end of the estimate for sure! It was a gorgeous day and we had a lot of neat views of the Mount Evans area. Many sections of trail were very steep. Overall I think we climbed 4,000-5,000 feet.