What's in Boulder?

Nov. 9


The trailhead for Mt. Sanitas is very close to the outskirts of the city of Boulder, just up the range, and even politely -- at least on the east side approach -- gently allows the city walker to casually stroll

up a wide ranging meadow up towards Indian Peaks where, by the time the summit is approached, you can see the city to one side and the snow capped continentle divide on the other.  This efficient ability to go from civilization up into the raw and craggy peaks and ridges of the rockies is one of the

great and obvious draws of hiking in Boulder.  If the approach to Mt. Sanitas from the east is casual, the approach from the west, along Mt. Sanitas Trail, is rigorous to say the least.  The very meaning of Sanitas, soundness of body of mind, makes entire sense on the ascent for, without both firmly in tune,

the summit is not going to be had.  The trail up is really nothing more than a 2,000 foot stair climber, all elaborately and beautifully put together by trail-tenders, which weaves in a out of a complex ridgeline full of enormous...boulders.  Ponderosa pines cover the backs of the Flagstaff mountainside of into the west, revealing a true and inner circle of wilderness (later in the day I drove to the summit of

Flagstaff, located 7,000 feet and walked a bit of the Ute and Tenderfoot trails into the kind of silent nature you only get high up in valleys not facing the sounds of the city).  Sanitas trail hikers, when you find them along the trail, no matter how good of shape, are huffing and puffing deeply.  Some are able to run down this portion of the trail, but nobody have I yet seen capable of running up the 2,000 foot stairs.  Once up on top of the rocky summit, it is the front range that is revealed, and the dynamic

flats along with the unseeable highs that make this part of the state very engaging for those who like diverse landscape.  The guide books offer a few ways back down – head right back down the stairs, or curl around to loop back down into the valley more casually, at an easier drop, and then the East Ridge trail which the writers mentioned that the hiker must pay attention to the direction of the trail because of several rock crossings that of course don't wear the same as dirt and are often lost.  The East Ridge descent was nothing short of rock climbing.  The trail was empty except for a few experimenters.  The trail dissapeared at times under caves that then ended at a promitory of boulders. There you had stand and look directly down into the loose bedrock for signs of usage.  Some worn curls in the ground was enough to go by, that and a view, here and there, down into the valley where the casual meadow trail stood like an easy treasure.  At one point, a bottom slide down a boulder into the dark shaded cover of a river of fallen rock was the trail.  The valley here do quiet you could hear a pin drop and that you hoped that pin was not a claw or rattle shaking.  Eventually looking back up the steep side of the east ridge, you are reminded of what the human body is capable of doing, knowing, especially, that along this very auditorium of rocky cliffs, climbers are right now fingering crevices in the great rock walls with no ropes.  Every hike along steep territory is a relative challenge.  As you breath deeply in and watch the loose trail straight up, you know the next mountain inward, toward the contental divide, gets longer and steeper and more technical.  The city hike seems just enough.