Hiking Lilly Mountain

Last weekend, my friend from childhood, Amy, came out to visit us. She brought along her doggie Murray, and we took them out for some great hikes and some beautiful days in the mountains!

On Saturday, we did the Greyrock Meadows hike to the trail conjunction with the summit trail. We had a great hike, with beautiful views despite overcast skies and a good bit of snow on the trail. As we climbed the final ridge behind Greyrock, the snow started pouring out of the sky. We discussed, and decided that this much snow was not good conditions to summit, so we headed down the canyon trail. I think Murray had one of the best days of his life, he LOVED running through the woods, sniffing for animals and playing with Liv in all of the meadows.

On Sunday, I found a trail just south of Estes Park that is still on National Forest land, and thus allows dogs. The Lilly Mountain trail starts at a nearly unmarked pullout on hwy 7, and is 2 miles to the summit. We packed up the snowshoes and headed up into the mountains.

It was a good thing we brought the snow shoes. We saw a few people near the trailhead coming back out after being thwarted by the deep sloppy snow. Even with the shoes, the trail seemed lightly traveled this winter, and had no blazes to help guide us. We lost it a few times. Eventually, we ended up on this beautiful outcrop with incredible panoramic views of the whole Estes Park valley. It was well worth the sloppy snow.

I don’t know if this was actually the summit of Lilly mountain or just a great view along the way, but we decided to call it the summit and headed back down. We had enough light after this hike to take Amy over to see the Stanley Hotel, and then head up into the National Park as far as we could before the road closed. The sunset was quiet and nice, and the Elk were out in force. It was a really nice day, and a great weekend! Amy’s going to have to come out and visit again soon!!