Roosevelt National Forest: Hewlett Gulch

 I had wanted to go to Fort Collins with Noelle and Sierra today, but they didn't seem interested, at least Sierra didn't. Noelle gave me permission to go on a solo adventure and so I decided to make the drive to the Fort Collins area anyway and do a hike that would be too long for the family. I opted to head back into the Poudre Canyon and hike Hewlett Gulch, a 8.1 mile lollipop hike.

I left the house at about 6:15 this morning and drove through a beautiful sunrise through Wyoming, where I stopped in Cheyenne to get a fast food breakfast, and into Colorado. I exited Interstate 25 at the Owl Canyon Road exit and made my way to Colorado Highway 14 for the drive into Roosevelt National Forest. Today's hike would start a short distance further up the canyon than my last hike in the area, Greyrock Mountain. I arrived at the trailhead a little before 9 am and hit the trail.

The scenery was pretty nice right off the bat. 

Besides the scenery, there were some interesting building ruins and foundation to explore at the start of the trail.

As I headed further up the gulch, the scenery only got better!

There were multiple stream crossings that I was a little bit concerned about, but they turned out to be very easy crossings, even with ice covering many of them.

After hiking for about 45 minutes, I came to the junction where the loop portion of the hike starts. I opted to take the portion climbing out of the gulch first.

As I climbed out of the gulch, sometimes pretty steeply, the distant views really started to open up.

I stopped every now and then to admire the views and take some breaks.

Soon enough the trail descended rather steeply and re-entered the gulch. A short while later I was back at the trail junction for the short walk back to the car. By this time of the day, there were lots of people out and about enjoying the beautiful day.