Gold Hill
One of our goals for the long weekend we were spending near Nederland was to find some new trails, and one of the new ones was Gold Hill. We'd been doing Switzerland Trail since the club began, but we never crossed over Gold Hill Road to do Gold Hill. We were looking forward to checking it out.
It was just a continuation of Switzerland Trail for most of it, though we took the optional hill climbs and they were a blast. The climb to the overlook was rocky and loose, and Monica had Amanda with her in the passenger seat, a first-timer to offroading. It was a great introduction, and she thought it was crazy.
It was windy at the overlook, but gorgeous. We snapped a lot of photos and really enjoyed it, even though it was chilly. It was a nice break from the 95-degree weather we'd been having in Denver. We also looked at a man-made ring of rocks at the overlook, and we didn't know what it was for. We started another ring along the outside, so maybe it will be good luck to add to it when you're there.
We went back down, enjoying that trip almost as much as the way up. Then we headed along the railroad bed to find the next big hill. We went up to the top, and when we were almost there we found and talked with a guy who was camping in the crazy wind. He said the trail kept going, and when we got up there we didn't really believe him. We got out and walked around, and it actually did go through. Crazy! We were pretty sure we would have turned around if the camper hadn't said something.
We're not sure if this is actually Gold Hill, but we were calling it that, anyway. The views were also pretty awesome from up there. But it was really, really windy and chilly so we headed back down the steep and fun hill.
We mapped out the bypass, turned around, and headed out. That put us back at the start, and we headed in to Switzerland Trail to do the other half. Gold Hill was a blast, and we'd definitely do it again.
