Homestead Meadows

09/22/2016 By WingsAndTales
This turned out to be a prefect day to hike into the area. It was great weather and the aspens are near full color. I started at the Hermit Park Open Space to the north. Based on the signs posted along the trail this is the only open route to the cache. My hike was about 9 miles and 1500' of elevation gain with no bushwhacking along the way. I'll post a few photos of the area that don't contain any spoilers for the cache. TFTC
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Photo

08/02/2016 By Path Pacer
We went up from the Lion's Gulch trailhead. The trail is still closed, and with good reason. Major parts of it are completely trashed, but it's passable. Make sure the trail is loaded on your GPS. We followed the eastern trail at the end, but it disappeared after a while, so we continued along the ridge until it dropped down, down, down to the trailhead.

We had great fun going from waypoint to waypoint. The last one was truly spectacular, and we spent a lot of time visiting all the buildings. A storm rolled in as we were leaving, but it mostly blew over us. Lots of thunder.

It's amazing how many families lived up there. They must have been a very tight-knit community.
Old barn

Free bath, bring your own water

Indian signpost?

Storm rolling in behind us

Met this big boy on the way out

06/30/2014 By Tahosa and Sons
Access to this Virtual is very limited. The trail from Lion Gulch is closed due to last years flood.
But you can come in from Pierson Park, tough hike. And there is a possibility that you can enter
from the north through the county park.

Just bear with the stuff the Mother Nature gave to us last year.

Cache on.

06/22/2014 By superjosh92
Day 18 of my solo trip to Colorado! Heading to visit my friend working at the Rocky Mountain YMCA! Started in Boulder, CO and ended in Estes Park, CO.

Had no idea this was a multi virtual until I headed out. On a time crunch. Thanks anyway!

08/05/2013 By vorticity
I hiked this with my son and dog Bean. Such a super experience. I am not sure what some of the other finders were expecting. Some of these structures have been out there for over a hundred years. Everything is still in great shape from my perspective. All the interpretive signs are there and easy to read. Take your time, but definitely add this to your list of MUST dos. Vort.

07/21/2013 By Me & Bucky

Bucky & I found the Homestead Meadows - North cache while escaping from the heat down in the lower elevations. It was great weather up here, as the temperature was in the 60s when we started (well before sunrise), and got up to the upper 70s by the time we got back to the trailhead around noon. Awesome weather for a hike up to the meadows! Approve

The visit to Homestead Meadows was the aim of today's hike, and it was completely awesome! Started up the trail around 06:00 and took it nice and easy on the way up. Lots of history is in this area, and its amazing to think of what these folks had to do in order to set up their homesteads in this area. One of the great things about today's hike was all the different wildflowers that were out. Just another reason that this is one of my favorite places to hike! Smile

Thanks for keeping this fun virtual cache going!! Cool

Stream on the Way Up

One of the Meadows

Lots of Flowers

Bucky at the Griffith Homestead!

What a View!!

Bucky at a Fixer-Upper

Today's Hiking Stats

11/09/2012 By EstesLynne
Hiked this loop with my hiking group on a gorgeous fall day today; tomorrow the snowstorm! This is a wonderful hike with really interesting historical information, a definite favorite and highly recommended. I have been up here before, and the old cabins are slowly but surely and noticeably falling down. The sooner the better for this hike, although this is NOT a very good winter trail; it's notorious for being icy.

It is easy to "cliff out" on the return part of the loop, and fortunately I had a good hikemaster. We took what must be an optimal way down--some bushwhacking, but not difficult, and no places excessively steep. The entire loop was about 8 miles on our GPSr's, and yes, if you backtrack instead of closing the loop, it will be substantially longer.

I saved my GPX track; if anyone wants the portion to close the loop from the last waypoint back to the trailhead the way we went, I can e-mail it, as long as you realize there are absolutely no guarantees. (The waypoints you have to do yourself; it's only fair.) However, I work as a volunteer in the National Park, and was a little alarmed at some of the logs here, where people were apparently hiking solo down cliffs. No, no, don't do that! Our hikemaster used a GPX track to find his way, and it won't change the terrain rating other than to perhaps keep you off a terrain 5. Hope this is OK with the CO.

This entry was edited by EstesLynne on Wednesday, 05 December 2012 at 21:13:25 UTC.

10/20/2012 By MainPeeps
Hiked the Lion's Gulch trail on a beautiful autumn day with cousin & his wife - two of our favorite people. Day couldn't have been more perfect. Thoroughly enjoyed discovering some Colorado history & exploring homesteads. Will be back to hike the Homestead Loop on another day. Thanks, Tahosa, for another awesome virtual.

08/31/2012 By elien2
I should have gone back the way I came up, but the GPS made it look like a nice shortcut to go off trail. After tumbling down one section of the shortcut, I was positive I should have stayed with the trail. Everything else was interesting though, and I'm thankful for the virtual.

08/19/2012 By icezebra11
Surprised to be the only one to log this so far this year. So I checked out the map and it said the trail was open to bikes so I took off up the gulch. Wow, that was a tough two miles for this old guy. Probably pushed the bike up as much or more than I rode it. Once I got to the meadow the biking was much easier. Saw many interesting homesteads and artifacts on the tour. Hard to imagine life up there in those times. Winters had to have been something else. After securing the last of the answers I returned the way I went up. The last two miles going down weren't much easier than going up. I think I would have been less tired had I hiked it. Thanks for the adventure Tahosa.