Anemone Loop

Posted: May 14, 2022

It's been too long since our last hike, but that's how life goes. Our lives are filled with other activities and busy with other things and we haven't had time on any of the other weekends to go out hiking. But we're maintaining at least a hike each month so far, which I can't ask for too much more. Although somehow in February we squeezed in a hike each week for a total of 4 hikes that month, but I guess we were just overachievers that month...

It's been a while since we've hiked in Boulder, and soon it will be too hot to even attempt hiking in Boulder. We went to a new trail that opened earlier this year - the Anemone Loop. The city of Boulder did a good job with this trail, and it was a lot of fun to hike this loop which gave us some great views looking in all directions.

We got to the trailhead around 9am, and started on the hike that ended up taking less than 2 hours. The parking lot surprisingly wasn't packed full which is the biggest unknown when it comes to hiking in Colorado, so we were glad to get a spot. The hike took us through some rock formations known as the Red Rocks that I had no idea existed in Boulder. They were slender rocks standing straight up which reminded me a lot of Devil's Backbone area in Loveland, although the Red Rock in Boulder didn't have nearly as many of these rocks as the Devil's Backbone area.

From the Red Rocks Trail, we headed West to the Anemone Loop trail where we hiked counterclockwise around the loop. We made it to Anemone Point which had great panoramic views of all of Boulder and all of the Western mountains.

Overall, it was a good hike that I would recommend to others. The temperatures were already quite high (upper 70's) for my liking, but I guess it is nearly summer, so I can't ask for much when hiking at only 6,000 feet.

Trailhead Location

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4.28 mi

1.8 hrs

6,125 ft

965 ft

View Graph

Wild Poppy

Right at the trailhead, there were a bunch of these orange wild poppy's.

Red Rocks

This isn't the normal think I think of when I hear Red Rocks, but this is the Red Rock area in Boulder.

Differnt Shades of Blue

Usually, the sky and the mountains end up being the same color blue. It was a clear day and the mountains to the left are in shadow, so I think that helped with showing the difference in color.

Wild Phlox

It's finally spring time, which means wildflowers! Wildflowers have been blooming for a little while, but there haven't been any yet at any of our past hikes, so this was the first hike that had them.
It took me quite a while to identify this flower since it's a pretty generic flower, but I think this is a Phlox.

Washed Out

You can see from the directions of the shadows in this photo that I wasn't shooting at it at the right time of day. As we hiked back, we got a good view of the Red Rocks. You can also see some of Boulder in the distance in this photo.