We haven't ventured into Lyons all that much, but there are lots of untapped hikes in the mountains West of Lyons. It seems like most people don't know about this area of Colorado because most people willing to drive at least to Lyons are willing to drive all the way up to Rocky Mountain National Park in Estes Park which is known for it's hiking. The thing is that Lyons hiking offers a very similar feel for hikes as Rocky Mountain National Park but with less drive and fewer people.

We picked Button Rock Mountain because it was rated right in the middle on my hike list in terms of difficulty rating (which is a total B.S. calculated number - but there is some math behind it). The hike list has actually become a great spot for us to pick hikes from. It's smaller and tailored towards what we want to do and still has a wealth of information for picking a hike.

There was a group of hikers that started hiking at the same time as we did and hiked with us most of the way to the top. I suspect they followed us pretty closely because at the first fork, they asked us about which way to go and learned quickly that they weren't hiking the trail they thought they were hiking. There were some times when them following us was a little annoying (since we hike to be alone), but it didn't bother me too much. Because of all the turnoffs and different trails in the area, I wouldn't recommend hiking this without a map, but they seemed to do OK (as far as we know).

Both Katie and I ended the hike pretty exhausted since we were hiking for over four hours. The last mile was the hardest because we were both ready to be done. The hike itself was a little over 9 miles (less if you don't get lost as we did with all the turn-offs) and over 1,600 feet of elevation gain.

We haven't been hiking in a couple of weeks. With Katie starting her new job and us only having Sundays together without either of us having to work, it's hard to get everything we want to do together done in just one day. But since we didn't go hiking the week prior, we knew we had to go this weekend!

Summiting Crosier Mountain is no easy task. First, you have to pick one of three different trailheads, all of which are over 7 miles in round trip length and over 2,000 feet of elevation gain. We thought we were picking the shortest and least steep of the three trailheads, but our hike ended up being 9 miles and 2,100 feet of elevation gain. The maps lied to us with the distance but we made it none the less and I'm pretty sure the other 2 trailheads would have been even longer and steeper.

We did the 9-mile round trip hike in just over 4 hours. The weather ended up being perfect. It was a little hot and sunny for the first couple of miles, then overcast for the rest of the hike with cooler low-70° temperatures and just a tiny bit of rain sprinkles. We stopped for 30 minutes at the summit to eat a late lunch and to rest a bit before heading down. The hike had everything from a large meadow with awesome views of the Mummy Range to dense woods, both alive and completely and eerily dead, and a spectacular summit panorama.