Mountain Multisport

Rainbow Over Elk Meadows

Hike and Bike

The city of Denver has more park land than any other city in the country. Much of the acreage is found in the traditional urban parks, ball courts, and swimming pools that come to mind when someone mentions a summer barbecue or picnic. But most of Denver’s park acreage is up in the mountains and features flowery meadows, shady evergreen forests, and rocky trails to mountain views. My friend Bre, and I took bikes along on the short drive to the park this morning for a planned biking/hiking route that would tax our lungs and legs and take us to the 9708 foot summit of Bergen Peak. The first half of the trail followed a ridge of the massive Bergen Peak up a number of switchbacks. After a few miles of this we were happy to take a break and visited with a hiker chugging up the same trail. He turned out to be the proprietor of a hot-air balloon company and told us that the chance of your hot-air balloon exploding is actually quite low. More likely is that the heat of the gas fire would destroy a seam of the fabric and deflate the balloon, sending passengers swiftly back to Earth. I don’t know if that’s any better. We continued on steadily, sometimes riding and sometimes pushing the bikes along. This is never a preferred method of travel for a biker. We agreed that biking uphill is tougher than hiking uphill, but pushing a bike uphill? Definitely the hardest. Eventually we came to a trail junction the spur trail that would climb to the summit. We stashed our bikes off the trail and took off on foot to reach our summit goal. The view from the top looked down upon Elk Meadow below and some of the narrow trails that we would be zipping along near the end of our ride. After some snacks to energize the descent we returned to our bikes and saddled up for the scenic plunge into Elk Meadows and the rolling trails below. A day like this in the mountains is, in my mind, one of  the greatest benefits to living in Denver. We were back in town in time for lunch and had gotten a great workout in the fresh air and big views that are one-of-a-kind Colorado. Not bad.