Denver Mountain Parks, hike in Morrison Colorado with Yeti Sighting!

Yes, a Yeti sighting!  
Our friends recently moved into the foothills outside of Morrison, Colorado and found this trail last summer.  I had been meaning to hike on it numerous times, but just never got around to it until now.   
I hiked this trail with Laura her daughter Amelia, who is the exact same age as my daughter Magnolia, who was also in attendance.  On our way back down the trail, we came across this scary creature (in photo to left) and it stopped us in our tracks!  The hair on the back of my neck stood up, and I was pretty sure we were seeing something crazy, a small bigfoot perhaps or a bear in a tree?  We stood there, it stood there...then Laura said that she didn't think it looked like any of the primates she saw at the zoo the day prior and it wasn't moving, so she ventured forward.  I was still a little tentative, and decided to hang back with the camera to take some pictures, ha!  As we got closer, we got braver, it got smaller and it still wasn't moving and I said "its a fake bigfoot" and indeed, it was.  There was a tube with paper for your signature attached to the tree that said 'Yeti Registry' and I actually remember seeing the tube as we passed it on the way up the mountain, but the Yeti was out of site from that direction unless you looked back on the trail and I just ignored the tube because Magnolia was fussing.  There are more photos of this farther down in my trip report.  

Getting there:  This is one of those trails that I agonize about giving directions on my blog because it was pretty confusing to get there.  However, the trail starts at a dead end street with this address, just put this into your GPS or map it, and you should get there just fine.  6165 Northway Drive, Morrison, Colorado, 80465.  As you drive down the road, you will be going through a residential area, and you will definitely think that this is not a place for a hike, then you arrive at the destination and there is a gated community at the dead end road, just stop and park to the left of the gates and go up the trail to start.  Once you get uphill a short distance the trail becomes more defined. 
Specs:  This is part of the Denver Mountain Parks Trail System, you can find a map of the DMP here,.  The map is not of the trail, but of all of the DMP trails.  The best that I can tell from their map is this trail is the Birch Hill Tract, number 22 on the DMP map.   There are no facilities here, there is however a picnic table at the top of the mountain on one of the trails, where we ate our lunch and that was the destination for the hike.   

The Hike:  We parked our cars, loaded up the babies and packs and started up the trail which is a little steep in the beginning and then levels out and immediately there is a 3-way trail split.  Laura knew which way to go (the center, most traveled trail) and we continued up the trail, but I thought to myself; 'this is going to be so hard to describe on my blog' because there are numerous side trails, none with names.  Our plan was to hike to the picnic table which is at the top of one of the foothills with nice views, and in the shade, Laura knew where to go, since they found this trail last summer when we were both pregnant and she was pretty sure she could get us back there.  

Start the hike and take the trail (in this photo) that is on the right, but there were actually 3 trails that split off, we took the one in the middle that was the most well worn.

 The trail continued through the pine forest, which was nice in the heat for some cool shade.  We walked slowly with both girls in the Ergo carriers on the front of us and carefully avoided the rocks and tree roots as we walked up the trail.   There were several trail splits or side trails along the hike, we continued down the path that was the most main and well traveled, Laura lead the way. 

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There were rock outcroppings along the trail and I remember actually thinking that this reminded me of an episode of Finding Bigfoot, which was a really coincidental after out Yeti spotting on the return.  There was another trail split near these rocks, the trail we took was straight/right.

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Eventually we crossed over a fallen tree, came out of the woods into a field where our trail intersected at a T with a more well worn trail (see above) and we turned LEFT.  We made a mental note to be sure not to miss our turn on the way back down because our trail was much less worn (and you can barely see it in the photo above) when compared with the T-intersection trail.  I wondered where the trail came up from?  Laura assures me she'll be going back and will find out sometime!  

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The field was full of wildflowers, past their peak, but still beautiful! 

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Magnolia spends part of every hike trying to get her hat off, but she seems to enjoy hiking! Our little Colorado Girl.  The trail went back into the trees and then out again and we came across some views ahead of us, we could also see some houses in the distance and a huge trail split.  

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Then we came to this intersection, the camera can't get a shot of all 4 of the trail shoots, but it was like two V's, >< and there were 3 choices as to where to go.  In the photo above Laura is standing on the trail we came up on, and the trail you can see in the photo going back and to the right of Laura is the trail we took.  However, in front of us (not pictured) were two other trails going to the left and right.  Laura paused here and was really unsure of which way to go, but she decided (correctly) that we needed to go right on the trail that went uphill.  So at the two V- intersection, turn right. 

It was confusing for us, and I hoped that I could make sense out of all the intersections for my readers.  Of course, this our hike is to go to the picnic table on the top, if you want to just hike around, you can choose any trail, several of which looked like they went uphill to lookout points as well.  I am just posting our trip route, but there were lots of options.  

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 At this point, we still hadn't seen anyone on the trail, nor any trail markers and the trail continued through another field and uphill toward a reddish house in the distance to the left.  (eventually the trail turns away opposite of this house). 
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 We continued along the trail Laura had chosen, but she wasn't convinced we were going the right way, the trail went through the trees again, then through another field and there were views of the surrounding foothills (shown above) and some houses nearby.   Eventually we came across a mountain biker that told us, indeed we were going the right way for the picnic table and to continue up to the trail until it hit a two track trail, turn left, and go uphill for just a few minutes and we'd be there.  He was correct! 

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 Here you can see a manmade teepee (shown in pic, click to enlarge) and this was just before the top where there was the picnic table in the shade.

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We ate some lunch on the top, we were joined by a young deer who ate her lunch in the field next to us the entire time, not even scared by us in the slightest.  

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 Here's Amelia eating some lunch with her mama :)  

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Our deer friend is hiding in plain sight in this photo, right in the middle, my camera battery was dead and I was borrowing Laura's camera and her zoom wasn't working, so it didn't really capture the deer as well as we could see it.

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I love pinecones :)  Lots along the trail, along with this yellow wildflower. 

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 More beautiful views of the foothills and mountains beyond!  On the top of the hill, there were other trails leading back down other than the one we came uphill on, but we weren't sure where they led, so we just went back the way we came. 

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 We hiked back down without much incident, although we did have one missed turn and quickly retraced our steps; it took much less time to hike down, as usual and we were in the pine forest again in no time.  Suddenly we came across this guy!  

We stopped dead in our tracks, my stomach dropped, the hair on the back of my neck stood up and we waited and watched.  After a minute our bigfoot/bear/unknown animal didn't move and Laura decided to venture forward saying, "it doesn't look like any of the primates that I saw at the zoo yesterday."  At this point we were certain it was fake, then we laughed and I said "it's a bigfoot!"  When we got closer we saw the canister hanging in the tree next to it that said, "Yeti Registry."

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I actually saw the canister on the way up, but didn't stop to look at it because Magnolia was fussing and I was trying to watch my step.  We signed our names and the date and read the funny comments inside. 

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It looks like a pretty obvious spot and he'd get noticed going up the trail (from the photos) but the trail is actually rocky right here and its likely you are looking at your feet, but its not very far from the road where we parked, maybe a 1/2 mile (I am guessing).  I wish I knew more about the Yeti Registry,  I googled it but didn't have a hit on anything that was relevant to canisters and fake bigfoots in trees along trails.

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We finished up our hike through the trees and then back to the car, we did manage to take a side trail accidentally, which lead us back to the main trail and we barely realized we had made the mistake until I noticed the rock outcropping that we missed somehow and a new outcropping that I remember passing which was off the trail on the way out. 

Some of the side trails do loop right back to the main trail, which is helpful...sort of...use caution on this trail and be sure to turn around and look behind you while hiking and at every intersection!  This helps you remember what that intersection will look like on your return so that it's not unfamiliar to you.  Trails look very different when hiking the opposite direction!  

Do you live in the area, or have you hiked this trail before?  If so, I'd love to hear where else this trail goes and if there is a map somewhere!  I'd also love to know more about the yeti registry.  Please leave a comment!

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