It has been a while since I have gotten to walk around the mountains of Colorado. It is not like I had forgotten about the, but I could say I had taken them for granted. All of the time I spent stuck in a foreign country during the pandemic, unable to return home, I had thought about them. When I was able to make it back to Colorado and enjoy them again, my priority went over to visiting with family and friends I had not seen for a long time, and visiting the mountains had taken a back seat. So when my sister suggested that we go on a hike one morning to a place in the mountains, and not far from her home, I was once again acquainted with the majesty that is the Rocky Mountains.
The trailhead she took me to was for Mount Falcon which is perched close enough to the world famous Red Rocks Amphitheater that there were many spots along the way where I was able to look over the Front Range. In fact to get to the trailhead, we had to drive through rural areas, dotted with numerous houses, barns, and fields of grazing horses. Still, it was far enough away that when we arrived and started hiking the trail, we put any semblance of society behind us. I was once agin out in the middle of nature, breathing in the fresh air and listening to the sounds of the forests outside of Denver.
There are two trailheads for the Mount Falcon trail. There is the east path and the west path. The east path is a more arduous hike as it takes people up the mountain; whereas, the west path is relatively flat and the easier choice. They both lead to the same spot, so it really depends on the hiker as to how much of a challenge they are up for. I elected to take the easier path, so we drove to the west trailhead.
The places where the paths take you are the real reason for finding these trailheads. John Brisben Walker owned much of the mountain in the early part of the twentieth century. He had two locations that any traveler can get to if they come out here. The first one is his homestead, a large sprawling estate where he used to live with his family and servants. Only the ruins to this building remain as it was struck by lightning in 1918 and burned to the ground. Because John Brisben Walker had endured the tragic death of his wife two years earlier, he abandoned the homestead and left the ruins for us to enjoy over a century later.
The other site is not as interesting to look at, but it has a more interesting story behind it. There is a stone wall that would have been the foundation to a majestic building out in the middle of the Rocky Mountains. On top of it, there is one marble brick that hints at the material that would have been used to eventually make this building. John Brisben Walker wanted to make a palace for the presidents of the United States that would have called the White House of the West. He was able to put in that one marble brick, and the rest of the project was abandoned. Though it is not as exciting as the ruins, it was still an interesting place to visit.
It was fun to be able to venture off into the mountains of Colorado again, even if it was just in the foothills. I hope it opens the floodgates for me to explore more of these mountains in the future, and not to take so long between visits. I was raised by going into these mountains, and I need to return to those moments of my youth to remember how much is offered by the Rocky Mountains.
John Collings 