We ventured to the mile high city this summer for a soccer tournament and used our downtime to explore a couple of easy and fun Colorado Springs hikes. Each hike features wide gravel trailways that offer up close glimpses of the beauty of Colorado. Keep reading for more on visiting the Garden of the Gods and Paint Mines Interpretive Park. Each of these unique hiking opportunities are located just minutes from Colorado Springs.
Garden of the Gods
As with most popular hiking spots, it’s best to get to the Garden of the Gods early. You’ll find better parking, temperatures will be cooler and you’ll need to get an early start to your day if you plan to expereince this park plus the Paint Mines. Garden of the Gods is so named after surveyors came upon the sandstone formations in the mid 1800’s. Surveryor M.S. Beech noted the place would be a fine location for a biergarten. His fellow surveyor, Rufus Cable, exclaimed, “Biergarten! Why this is a fit place for the god’s to assemble.” From that moment on the area was known as the Garden of the Gods.
There are several ways to explore the Garden of the Gods. You can take a segway, Jeep or bike tour or participate in a guided nature walk. We chose to explore the park on foot. Start at the visitor’s center where you can pick up a free trail map of the park. With map in hand, make your way to the under road walkway towards the rock formations. Our hike included a 3.5 mile loop along the Foothills and Gateway trails. We allowed ourselves to meander and explore the paths as well as do a bit of rock scrambling near Sleeping Giant.
The sandstone rock formations at Garden of the Gods were created nearly 65 million years ago as the Rocky Mountains began to take shape when the old Pacific and North American tectonic plates collided. If you ask our boys, this collison created a wonderful playground fit for adventerous youngsters to crawl, scamper, and scale. Tired from their rocky adventure we made our way back to the visitor’s center for ice cream before driving east to Paint Mines Interpretive Park.
Paint Mines Interpretive Park
Following our time at Garden of the Gods we continued on to Paint Mines Interpretive Park. Located about an hour east of Colorado Springs, the Paint Mines feature 760 acres of colorful hiking opportunities. There are about four total miles of hiking trails at the Mines. Visitors can take in these unique hoodoos from one of two overlooks as well as hike down into the mine area.
We chose to start our walk through the mines from the West Overlook and then proceeded down the path for up close looks at the clay and jasper formations. Approximately 9,000 years ago Native Americans in the area used the clay from this area to make paint. The colorful bands of clay are caused by oxidized iron compounds. Overall, we spent just over an hour wandering through the mine trails. The Paint Mines are a fun and unique Coloroado hiking experience. We definately recommend adding this easy hike to your Colorado travel itinerary.
For more hiking adventures, see our posts on hiking Sunday Gulch or Devil’s Bathtub in South Dakota or Seven Sacred Pools or Devil’s Bridge in Sedona.
Happy Adventuring, Rochelle