Chimney Gulch

Tuesday, July 18th

I met Jennifer, Conrad, and their friend Debbie after work to do Chimney Gulch, which starts just south of the Highway 6/93/58 junction in Golden. The city of Golden's website says 2.5 miles and 2000 feet. Jennifer said 3.5 miles and 1800 feet. I'm going with the latter - as near as I can tell from topozone, the starting elevation is 5800 feet, and the nature center is just under 7600. Based on the time it took, I'd say 3.5 miles is accurate.

The first mile was pretty steep - gaining probably 600+ feet (11%), although it felt much tougher because of the stair-step nature. I think I started off a little too fast, as we did this mile in ~12:30. Ouch. After crossing Lookout Mountain Road, the trail continues to climb steeply on several switchbacks for about ~1/4 mile before becoming more reasonable. I tried to run this steep section, but quickly had to switch to power hiking. At this point Conrad had gotten a gap on me, and I wouldn't catch up with him again until the summit. He said he ran the whole thing - too much for me. I tried to settle into a good pace, but jogging was out of the question for the most part. I made the summit in 51:51, Conrad and I spent a few minutes waiting. At this point it was ~8:15, and we decided to head down.

I did the first mile down in just under 10 minutes, and it started to get dark. We took it easy the next mile and half, and then went really slow the final mile, almost in complete darkness. We made it back to the car just before 9:00 - a total of 1:42 moving.

Total Mileage: 7.0
Total Elevation Gain: 1800ft