Oh damn, it’s Button Rock Dam, y’all. Round two of trail mishaps for the weekend we’re afoot. At this point I am just pushing the reset button on Sunday and hoping for the best 🙏🏻.
I went up to Lyons initially intending to meet up with some women from a hiking group for a group hike. I am by nature habitually late for hiking. Like every time. I have no idea why this is but maybe because it’s the weekend and I don’t like to stick firm time frames if I don’t have to. So I was running my standard 10 minutes behind which wasn’t a huge deal. I never expect anybody to wait and I can always play catch-up. That was all good and fine until things took a turn. Due to a comedy of errors including losing my selfie stick and having to walk my handyman through breaking into my house after turning off my alarm I was now running very, very late.
When I finally made it to the trail head it was about an hour after the set time to head out so it was pretty clear this had become a solo hike for me. No biggie. I enjoy hiking alone and could honestly use the extra solitude recharge after this hectic week. I arrived a little before 11 and there was plenty of parking. There is a restroom at the trail head and a little further into the trail as well. Unfortunately I had forgotten to favourite the trail on AllTrails so I read the trail map, quite naturally failed to take a picture of it, and hoped for the best.
I ended up doing Longmont Dam Road to Hummingbird Switchback trail and walked around the reservoir once I got to the top. Alltrails has this hike listed as moderate and I would honestly say it was pretty easy, even with adding the Switchback trail which AllTrails doesn’t use. I tracked about 5.3 miles total and I’m unsure about the elevation gain as similar trails on AllTrails reflect anywhere between 450 and 950 feet. So your guess is as good as mine 🤷🏼♀️.
The Longmont Dam road portion of the trail was very wet and sandy. I don’t mind trekking though slush and this had a LOT of it. The trail itself is very wide and basically an unpacked road. Although the area is beautiful with the rock structures and stream running next to it, there are a lot of man-made buildings, fences, and powerlines that unfortunately take away a bit from the overall nature experience.
After a short stretch on the initial path, you pass a few smaller dams then reach one that is blasting out water, which is pretty cool to sit and watch. Again, this hike is an definitely an “embrace the man meets nature experience.” After that stretch I took the Hummingbird Switchback trail up to the Ralph Price reservoir and walked around for quite a while. The reservoir is mostly frozen over but the ice is cracking in some places and the views are absolutely spectacular. There weren’t too many other groups walking around up there so I posted up my hammock and read for a while. Oh, yeah, it was another unseasonably warm day, praise Zeus. It has been a while since I’ve had some hammock time and, let me tell you, it was MUCH appreciated.
After hanging out for a bit I packed up and headed back to the trailhead. Again it was a nice little hike back down but definitely more on the easy side. Unfortunately I never ran into the hiking group but I did get some much needed solo time, which was maybe what the universe wanted for me that day. I’m also really glad I didn’t bring my dogs as apparently there is a one dog per person limit there...which I find very strange.
This was my first time hiking in Lyonss and I would venture to guess there are a lot of really cool hiking spots up that way. Definitely putting it on my list of places to research and looking forward to explore that area more. If you’ve got got some Lyons hikes to share, please do! Until next time, happy hiking ❤️✌🏼🥾!
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