Had the absolute pleasure of meeting and hiking with a group of rad ladies from the Women Who Hike Colorado group on Facebook. I cannot say enough great things about this group. It‘s been such a wonderful resource for all things hiking and I’ve found the community to be an overwhelmingly supportive group of females in general.
I have honestly never put the effort I should into developing and maintaining female relationships for a variety of reasons (I dive into this on instagram, so I won’t double dip here), but this group has allowed me to start changing that by meeting like-minded ladies who love the outdoors too. I posted something a while back about looking for hiking buddies and this hike came to be. Simple as that ❤️! And these ladies, much like the ones I met on a camping trip to Buena Vista, were all AMAZING. Smart, funny, passionate women that anyone would be lucky to go hike with.
We chose to meet up at the Home Depot in Morrison and head to Staunton together. Staunton is a state park, so there is a per car fee of $8 unless you have a parks pass (totally worth it, in my humble opinion! It’s $80 a year and you have unlimited access to all state parks).
We we ended up hiking the Staunton Ranch and Bugling Elk Loop. The Loop is rated as moderate, which I‘d say is fair. My kidneys were being extra pissy for some reason and i had the most sausage-y fingers I’ve had in a WHILE (probably because I was laughing and talking so much instead of breathing and drinking water, ha!).
None of the hike itself was particularly challenging, but there was steady incline throughout a majority of it. I didn’t put my spikes on, but a vast majority of the trek down was VERY icy and we had a few light tumbles. There are plenty of amazing views on this hike and we even ran into a group of deer who were very clearly not concerned with our presence.
Towards the the end of the hike there were some old cabins and a strange bugs bunny iron statue. I honestly hadn’t expected so many things to see along the way, but for a hike without a destination, this one was pretty neat.
For as big of a group as we had, there really weren’t many other people out on this trail and the parking lot was wide open when we got there; with plenty of spaces when we left. I wouldn’t necessarily take my kiddo on this as I think this would have been too much for him...but my dogs would have enjoyed it.
Hike number four, check! 8.8 miles and 1,574 feet of elevation gain in the books.
Happy hiking 🏔✌🏼❤️!
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