Lory State Park

Earlier this week, Jon and I went for our first hike in Colorado. After doing a little bit of research on the internet we traveled up to Lory State Park to hike the park's flagship trail, Arthur's Rock. The scenery out here is absolutely beautiful. It's a mixture of desert and prairie, interspersed with bits of greenery of the temperate forrest I'm used to back in North Carolina. The terrain is much more rocky, the trail a mixture of gravel and sand over flagstone, marble, and granite jutting up from the earth.

The hike was described as moderate to difficult, which for us east coaster's not used to the high altitude and the steeper slopes here. The trail started out low in the mountains and slowly winds its way up. As you move up the mountain you encounter a fair number of switchbacks that left me out of breath and wishing I was in better shape. As you get higher up the mountain there are more trees and the trail is much more shaded, which was nice after hiking a mile up the mountain in the hot sun. 

At the top of Arthur's Rock, you have to scale up path of boulders to see the view from the top. That was really cool but also really nerve racking. However, the view from the top is totally worth it. On one side you can see the town of Fort Collins below and behind on the other side of the mountain is a view out into Lory State Park and the Rockies. Climbing and hiking back down is a lot easier than going up and a fairly quick trip down.