Hike Club Beginner Hikes

I'm constantly talking to people who have not hiked, the most common reason they cite is that they want to do a beginner hike first. I have planned a couple beginner hikes but typically i do not get any new members. It's frustrating to plan a short hike for newbs then none show and the HC veterans feel unfulfilled.
This is my solution, to provide the information necessary to do your own beginner hikes.

These are hikes picked specifically for Hike Club beginners. They are all under 5 miles and have low elevation change. They are all on Jeffco open space parks where there are maps available at the trail head.

What to bring:

REI has a ton of resources about outdoor activity.
http://www.rei.com/learn/expert-advice/hiking.html
Here is their basic hiking gear list. 

http://www.rei.com/learn/expert-advice/day-hiking-checklist.html

While their list is extensive, its not all necessary for these hikes. I think these are good if your deeper in the mountains. While your within sight of downtown you wont need to build a fire, or shelter; your priorities should be a map, water and warmth.

For these hikes this is what you really need:

1. Navigation

• Map (with protective case) - Get it at the trail head
• GPS (optional) - i really like having it even when i'm by myself.

2. Sun protection

• Sunscreen
• Lip balm
• Sunglasses
• Sun Hat

3. Insulation

• Clothes to suit the weather. Look at the forecast, know what is expected before you hike. You wouldn't wear flip-flopps, shorts, and a t-shirt to build a snow man. Dress the part, If it's cold wear more clothes
• Dress in Layers: T-Shirt, warm shirt, pants/shorts, running shoes (only if there is no snow on the ground) or boots.
• Waterproof layer - cold is fine but wet and cold is a killer. even if there is no rain/snow in the forecast bring your waterproof layer, Even if it's a trash bag or emergency poncho.

4. Illumination (not necessary)

5. First-aid supplies (not necessary)

6. Fire (not necessary)

7. Repair kit and tools (not necessary)

8. Nutrition

• Light snack - granola bar, GORP, nuts

9. Hydration

• Water bottles or Hydration system - 1 Quart per person

10. Emergency shelter (not necessary)

Where to go:

Jeffco has excellent sites for it's parks, Jeffco Parks map. you can find links to those parks Here, scroll down the Open Space Parks section. They also have driving directions to the park as well as a address you can put in google and get your own directions on your mobile or car GPS.

These hikes are close to Denver and relatively short. pay attention to the distance and elevation change, these stats are the most important in determining difficulty of any hike. I have linked the Jeffco sites about each one of the parks. Use these sites to know what you will be getting into. They have a link to a downloadable PDF of the same map you'll pick up at the trail head. Also, the Trail Profile link will tell you elevation change of the trails so you can plan your route. This is the exact same process i use to plan Hike Club outings.

Matthews/Winters Park

http://jeffco.us/parks/parks-and-trails/matthews-winters-park/

Just north of Red Rocks, South of I-70. This is a great beginner park, very low elevation change, just watch out for the Biker only trails. There are many options that range from less than a mile up to 4.4 miles. 

<1 mile, under 200 feet:

Follow the village walk trail to the junction with the Red rocks trail, then return the way you came.

2.4 miles, 500 feet:

Go South on the Village Walk trail to the Red Rocks trail. Follow Red Rock Trail to the northern junction of the Morrison Slide trail. Return the way you came. If you're not exhausted climb to the top of the hill on the Morrison slide trail. It is steep for half a mile, but the view from the top is excellent.

4.4 miles, 1100 feet:

Go South on the Village Walk trail to the Red Rocks trail. Follow Red Rock Trail to the junction of the Morrison Slide trail. Follow Morrison Slide to the southern junction of the Red Rocks trail. Follow Red Rocks north to Village walk back to the trail head.

Elk Meadow Park

http://jeffco.us/parks/parks-and-trails/elk-meadow-park/

Just off of the Evergreen parkway between i-70 and Evergreen

3 miles, 500 feet 

From the Lewis Ridge Parking lot, Follow Sleepy "S" west  to Elk Ridge to Meadow View Trail. Go south back to Sleepy "S" and follow it to the parking lot.

3.2 miles, 800 feet

From the Lewis Ridge Parking lot, Follow Sleepy "S" East to Painters Pause north to Founders Trail, Take Meadow View south to Elk Ridge Trail and Sleepy "S" to the Parking lot.

5 miles, 1100 feet

From the Stagecoach Boulevard Parking lot, Follow Meadow trail to the Sleepy "S" past the other parking lot to Painters Pause north to Founders Trail, Take Meadow View south to Meadow trail to the Parking lot.

Deer Creek Canyon Park

http://jeffco.us/parks/parks-and-trails/deer-creek-canyon-park/

South West of C-470 and Ken Caryl Road

2.7 miles, 700 feet

Take Meadowlark trail to the junction with the Plymouth Creek trail back to the parking lot.

Also in this area are South Valley Park and Hildebrand Ranch Park, I've not been to these parks, nut they have low elevation change and many trails. Here's your chance to pick your own route.

I will be planning some more all Hike Club Beginner hikes, but don;t wait for me. If the weather is nice and you've got a couple hours GO HIKE!

Hike Club

Hike Club was started back in feb. '13. Karen and I had been camping the summer of '12 with Amber and Evan. Memorial Day weekend we went to the Sand Dunes and camped on Medano (pronounced Med-no) Pass in the Sand Dunes National Preserve. While there for the three day weekend we hiked the Dunes in the most miserable wind you can imagine. The next day we tried to find Medano Lake, a couple miles up a hiking trail. People coming down the trail told us nobody had found the lake and that there was so much snow they lost the trail several times. So we turned back figuring that being memorial day at about 10,000 feet the lake could still be covered in ice and snow. Also a major motivation for heading for camp was that we were all out of steam. The rest of our camping trips included a hike, because Colorado is beautiful so lets go see it! I felt i was holding us back because of my physical condition, being overweight had to change.
I knew we needed to be hiking more to build stamina and i always want to take my friends. Facebook was the ideal medium for me to get my friends and like minded peeps into the mountains on short notice.
Hike Club came to me while falling asleep one night. In a sleepy haze the next morning i wrote this to describe what Hike Club was about:

First rule of Hike Club is: Nobody talks about Hike Club.
Karen Evan Amber and I are planning an Epic summer full of camping and hiking. It's still snowing but and too cold most of the time but there are glimpses of summer here and there. And there are some year-round trails near Denver. The point of Hike Club is to provide a high speed dynamic communication stream that will allow for rapid planning and execution of hiking events in the early season.

The group started with 15 or so people that i knew would be interested. Today it's at 90 members. There have only been a hand full that have hiked with karen and i, less than 20. But that doesn't matter. I'm still taking my friends in to the hills to have fun and be active. I didn't really know what it would be when i started, but now i think i have a good idea. It was very active in the beginning but slowed as camping season arrived and everyone's schedules filled up for the summer. Now that summer is over i need to redouble my efforts and get back into the swing of things.
It's always worked like this: I watch the weather report during the middle of the week and if Sat. or Sun. has nice weather I plan at hike. Mostly we hike at Jeffco open space parks, we've been to a couple Denver mtn. parks. The info goes out to the facebook group via an event. I pick a location and start time and basic route for the hike and give specifics like distance, difficulty, and elevation change.
Our first outing was an epic failure. I thought i had a plan but was very wrong.
I found a route on a public sourced website starting at the hogback parking lot on the north side of I-70. I thought i was taking us on a three mile loop, or that's what the website said. I learned later that the description was not accurate for the map that that showed the route. Thinking it would take an hour or two we didn't start until 1:00 in mid Feb. As it turned out we hiked 6-7 miles that day, as we were hiking along the top of the hogback we watched the sun set while we were still more than a mile from the cars. Being our first trip we were all super tired, karen was gassed but keep hiking. people kept telling her "it's all down hill from here" (now one of our running jokes that typically prompts the response "Fuck You!") but they were wrong. We did make it with out incident other than being chilly and exhausted.
My distance estimates are typically wrong; you can safely add two miles to what ever i say it will be to find the actual distance. I always know where we are and where we need to go since i always have a map and GPS. The actual distance is not so important. It's about the trip, We have a good time.

If your interested hit me up on FB and i'll add you.

Smores Level 2

Smores are the classic camping desert, and super easy. The thing i don't like about smores is that the chocolate is too cold and hard. Chocolate needs to melt in your mouth to be most tasty. Here is my very first video for this blog.

I also think there could be better Graham Crackers. Along the lines of the warm chocolate, the force it takes to bite through the Graham cracker is so much that the marshmallow and chocolate go squirting out the sides. They already have perforations to let you break them into smaller parts. 

I want to change the pattern of the perforations to match the pattern of bytes you take to eat the S'more.

Another change that i make to smores is to replace the chocolate with a peanut butter cup. I love the candy any way, all warm and soft in a smore is amazing!

A note about roasting marshmallows. Take your time. use the coals not the flames. Take your time, it's worth it. Find a stick that is as straight as possible, this lets you slowly rotate the marshmallow in the heat, Like a rotisserie. 

Welcome to How to camp right.
I've been camping all my life, and i'm good at it. I also love to teach and share knowledge, so here is my attempt at combining my interests. Over the last few years I have been renewing my love affair with the outdoors. I'm almost 40 and way over weight, My loving wife, Karen and i were fat and happy but wanted to be less fat. I've always agreed that diets don't work. To make real change you have to change your life, not just what you eat for limited time period. Part of that change included exercise, I hate using a indoor machine to make me sweat. Having lived in Colorado all my life the answer was obvious, the mountains are right there!

I started a group on Facebook called Hike Club, the point was to get a groups of like minded outdoor lovers ready to hike on short notice. Starting in mid February I would look at the weather report on Wednesday and if there was a decent day on the coming weekend i'd plan a hike at a Jeffco Open Space park. We hiked about every two weeks all the way up to summer. Hike Club has been great and were back into Hike Club season now that schedules have started to free up since the snow is coming.

In the summer of 2012 Karen and I camped 3 or 4 times with Evan and Amber. On these campouts we would do day-hikes that Karen and I were barely ready for, and wanted more. Hike club was really about motivating me to get in shape to keep up with my camping buddies from the summer before. And it worked! This summer we camped our asses off.

We car camp. I know some of you think it's not really camping if you don't carry all your crap some random distance into the woods. I disagree. Don't get me wrong, I go camping to leave it all behind, I try to camp as far away from everyone as i can. I want the solace and quite of the mountains to be shared among my invited friends.

I intend to share my method of enjoying the outdoors through this blog. Take it or leave it this is what i love.