St. Mary's Falls

St. Mary's Falls is located off Gold Camp Road in Colorado Springs.  It is to have reported 33 waterfalls leading up to St. Mary's Fall.  The trail is 5.6 miles round trip.  The first half of the trail is pretty easy, the second half of the trail is where you gain some altitude and hit rougher terrain.

To get to the trail head there are two different tunnels that you pass thru.  As you can see this one is only about 100 meters. No head lamp needed here.

Second tunnel, this one is about 1/4 mile. Once you get past the bend, you can see the "light at the end" I don't think you really need a head lamp, but it is helpful.  Inside the walls are jagged, and the way the light bounces off the walls is rather cool.

Before you reach the tail head there is an old closed up rail tunnel. The trail head is just to the right or the rail tunnel. The trail will lead you up and around this around this.

 The trail follows along side a stream. The trail is not heavily traveled so one can get lost in the sound of waterfalls as you hike to St. Mary's. Here is one of the many waterfall that you will see along the trail side.

Almost there! Notice that Orion and I are matching, we are both in orange! This is the last .2 miles of the hike, there are a few tight steep switch backs.  This was the steepest part of the whole trail.  There are a few rock steps before you reach the fall.

There she is! St. Mary's Fall! This fall is 181 vertical feet up! Honestly this picture does not do her justice. 

Just right of the fall is a memorial for a fallen climber.  The plaque reads:

In Memory of Eamon Murphy 1948 - 2008
Who fell to his death here on May 24, after solo climbing Stove Mountain above these fall, He was a darling man, loved by all who knew him.

The boots are filled with rocks so that they do not blow away. As I experienced it can get rather windy.

The view of Colorado Springs, is breath taking, you can see the Broadmoor from here.  The elevation at this point is 9,300ft. At this time the sun just happened to be shining down on it.  After a little snack it was time to head back down. 

 

This hike overall was pretty good.  It is labeled as a family friendly hike, but when you gain almost 2,000 feet in about 3 miles, the last 1.6 miles being the steeper of the hike. I don't think is a great from smaller children.  If you can climb Palmer Loop, Section 16, then this should be fairly easy for you. 

 

 

Lat-long GPS coordinates: N 38.77079 and W -104.91893

 

 

~Happy Trails!

 

 

”I run in the snow, rain, wind and heat. I run until I cannot run anymore then I run some more. I run thru the blur of tears, the aches and pains and then I keep going. I have more running clothes than some running stores, I know Fartklet does not mean like it sounds. I go to bed at 9pm; I get up early just to do it all over again. Why do I do this? Because I am a runner and that's who I am"

Catamount Trail

After spending some time looking at trails in the Colorado area, I came across Catamount Trail.  The trail is located in the little town of Green mountain Falls, CO.  Pass. The trail took me 3 1/2 hours to complete the 6 mile round trip only stopping for picture and a snack stop. Elevation gain of 1,700 ft the highest point being 9,200ft at Catamount Reservoir.

The trail was rebuilt in 1997 and rated "moderate".   To get to the trail head you will need to park on Hondo road and hike about 3/4th of a mile to get to the trail head.

The trail head starts out a bit rocky with a few tight switchbacks and scales up the side wall of Slot Canyon.

The first mile up the side wall was a little bit of a work out.  If you can scale up the Incline then this would be just fine for you, but the steps are a little steeper.

You can see Ute Pass just thru the trees right before you get to the top.  Which will slope downwards toward the Garden of Eden. 

There is a little stream that you will pass by just before the Garden of Eden.  I saw little fish swimming down stream. 

Since it is still very early spring, the meadow was not in blum, I would like to go back and see it in full blum.  The meadow is sourded heavy rock walls of granite boulders.  It was windy, but down in the medow the rock walls kept the wind out.

Rock walls in the Garden of Eden

 After you pass thru the Garden of Eden you will find yourself passing thru some large boulders along the stream.

You will approach a dirt path, you will want to take the trail that leads slightly down wards then up to the Catamount Reservoir.

The reservoir was still slightly frozen over but the views were still stunning. You are looking at the back side of Pikes Peak. If you look very carefully you are able to see the house on top of Barr Trail

”I run in the snow, rain, wind and heat. I run until I cannot run anymore then I run some more. I run thru the blur of tears, the aches and pains and then I keep going. I have more running clothes than some running stores, I know Fartklet does not mean like it sounds. I go to bed at 9pm; I get up early just to do it all over again. Why do I do this? Because I am a runner and that's who I am"