Garden of the Gods

It is such an awesome name for a national park, Garden of the Gods. It was absolutely beautiful and huge! We went yesterday morning and our friend Joe joined us. So we were a trio of monk, cleric and rogue. We hiked for a good 3 hours straight and we only tapped the surface of all the trails that you could take. 

The entrance

The view from where we parked.

The weather was a little cloudy but not freezing so it was bearable. And there were a lot of people visiting the park. You can do almost anything here: hiking, running, cycling, mountain biking, horseback riding, rock climbing... it's just awesome. We saw a slew of people doing all of those things, except for the horseback riding.

The beginning of our trail

We were a little concerned when we started the trail because, as you can see, it is paved. Which is fine but we wanted something more challenging. We wanted to climb, jump and leap over stuff. Luckily, as you went along the trail, there were places you could deviate off the path. It was mostly for rock climbers but there were paths where we could hike through without needing climbing equipment. Apparently you need to have a permit in order to climb the rocks, there were signs everywhere warning people. So we each got a permit (it's free...). We definitely don't have any experience, but now if we want to frolic in those areas, we won't have to worry about getting fined.

That's how we ended up in this crevice

Then we accidentally ended up on a trail we really weren't supposed to take. (We misread the signs)

You would have thought this would have been a sign.

It was really fun though. We got to go through narrow crevices and jump over fallen trees, trek through brush and avoid horse crap. Oh, and we met the man (Zebulon Pike) who discovered Pike's Peak after we ate lunch at the visitor's center.

Pike's is right behind them

One day we will go and hike up there. I seriously can't wait for spring to come back to all these places. Since it's winter, most of the animals are hibernating and all the plants are dead. It has to be so exciting when things are growing and bounding around.

Click here for more Garden of the Gods photos.