Rabbit Mountain Hike and St Vrain Greenway CO…

Since we are going to be in Longmont Colorado for a while as we await our appointment with a freightliner dealer to once again look at our failing gauges we have made ourselves comfortable in our tight site at the fairgrounds. One great thing about the fairgrounds is that it is located adjacent to the Boulder County Open Space which has lots of hike and bike trails around small lakes. The trails also connect to the St Vrain Greenway bike trails.

We have walked around the small lakes several times and also rode our bikes along the bike trails one afternoon. There are still some parts of the trails system under repair from some devastating flooding which occurred in Longmont in 2013. Another nice thing about the bike trails is that they go right by Left Hand Brewing where we stopped one day for happy hour and tasted some might fine brews.

Another great thing about our location is we are close to lots of hiking opportunities. One nice area we discovered was the Rabbit Mountain Open Space. There are several nice shorter hikes available there in the easternmost point of the foothills of the Rockies. The hikes are easy to moderate since they do take on some elevation but the trails are in excellent condition for hiking.

We opted to hike the Little Thompson Overlook trail which was a little over 3 miles in and out. There was about 380 feet of elevation gain over the 1.5 miles to the overlook. Since we aren’t yet used to the altitude this was a great hike to get us acclimated as we did huff and puff our way to the top. There are some rocky outcrops which drop straight down the hillside at the end which offer great views toward the mountains and over the towns below in the valley.

Its a great place to hike and one we will revisit. Also close by are the towns of Denver, Fort Collins and Boulder which we will likely visit while here. For better hiking we also plan to visit Rocky Mountain National Park when the temperatures warm up. So waiting for our repair is not such a chore since we are in a great location with a lot to do.

NOTE: We are now in the Boulder County Fairgrounds in Longmont Colorado until, well, who knows when…