Triangle Mountain

We have been on a roll for doing challenging hikes, and our plans for this weekend were no different. We had our first double-digit mileage hike planned up near Camerons Peak, but after doing a quick weather check before heading out we realized that there were life-threatening flood warnings issued in that area for the early afternoon. Deciding that was a little too risky, we decided to pivot and hike Triangle Mountain which has always been daunting for us. Triangle Mountain is a daunting hike because of how steep it is. It's only 3 miles round trip, but in the 1.5 miles to the summit, there is almost 1,300 feet of elevation gain. Even though the area that this hike was in was also supposed to get some afternoon thunderstorms, it was a lot less risky because we would have never been too far from the car and because it's less than an hour drive to get to the hike. Because the hike was so short and it was quick to drive to, we were back home before noon - something that's never happened before.

Looking back on it, this isn't the steepest hike that we've done, so I'm not sure why it's been so daunting to us. This hike has almost the exact same steepness as Green mountain, around 400 vertical feet per mile, which we hiked in the winter (which is more difficult to hike because of the danger of slipping). I've also done 3 other hikes that were steeper than this, Lilly Mountain with 443 vertical feet per mile, and then of course the two 14'ers that I've done are at the top of the list with averages of 840 vertical feet per mile for Mt. Sherman, and 550 vertical feet per mile for Democrat, Cameron, Lincoln, and Bross

This still proved to be a really challenging hike, despite it only taking a little over two hours to complete. We're not used to such steepness in our hikes and that made it a little bit unpleasant. We also weren't very high up (around 9,000 feet) so it was a little warmer than I would have liked it to be. There were some great views of the surrounding mountains, but with the sun pretty high in the sky most of the mountains were washed out. We've been hiking in such nice alpine areas lately that these views just didn't do it for us. But overall it was nice to get out and get some exercise, even if it's not a hike that we would probably do again.

The best part of this hike was that we were completely alone. Every other hike I've done there has been at least one other group of people on the trail at some point, but today we had Triangle Mountain all to ourselves. It's not a very popular hike because of the steepness and short distance, but I would have thought we would see at least one other group at some point because of how close it is to Loveland. But I won't complain about that, having a trail all to yourself is a pretty special treat, one I've been chasing for quite some time that I'm now glad to have accomplished.