Pole Hill
On June 30th, some of our group ran the loop made by Pole Hill, Pierson Park Road and Johnny Park Road, but Walt and Jed could not make that run. Not to be left out they decided to run it themselves on a different day. Just like on June 30th, the weather was perfect.
Even with good instructions and GPS coordinates we still made a wrong turn trying to find the trail. It didn't take very long for us to figure out our mistake -- we turned one street too soon. We worried that this wasn't a very good start, knowing that wrong turns could be abundant today. Luckily, it turned out that would be the only wrong turn of the whole run.
After making it to the trailhead, we aired down and started the trail. The trail started the first of many long rocky climbs right away. This is a great trail for long climbs through the woods.
There are many camping spots along the trail. Jed wanted to check a few out and at the first one we stopped at had all sorts of trash on the ground. Jed picked up all the trash and we took off to explore some more.
At the first intersection we stopped and consulted the instructions and GPS which were very valuable tools for this trail. We would be stopping to do this at every intersection through out the day, but we didn't make any more wrong turns. Seeing that this was 247A, we went to the next intersection and turned right on 247. A left here will take you to a campground. We were treated to another hill climb through the trees.
We made a left on 247C and went straight past 122A on our left. This time we climbed a steeper hill and the road became 247 again to finish a nice loop back to 247C. We turned right again and then turned left onto 122A to head to the Notch.
We headed down into a valley and across Solitude Creek. Don't blink or you might miss the little creek. A little while after crossing Solitude Creek we started climbing another nice hill. Seems like this whole trail is uphill. We checked out another campground and then headed to the overlook the see the view. Walt was really looking forward to seeing the Notch, so off we went.
We arrived at the Notch and climbed to the top to take a few pictures. You have a great view of Estes Park from the top of the rocks. The view isn't bad at the Notch either. We shot the breeze for awhile, but it was time to head down the trail. We still had two more to do to finish the loop.
We had no problems finding our way down off the trail. On to Pierson Park Road!
Reports from Other Days: 2
Use the arrows or dots to flip through the previews of the other reports for Pole Hill. Click one of them to read more and see all of the photos from that day.
