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On our next trip after the Custer, South Dakota Trip was to several spots in Colorado. Our first stop on this trip was at Cripple Creek, which was about an hour west of Colorado Springs and on the west side of Pikes Peak. Here at Cripple Creek, we got to do eight hikes in six days or an average of about 1.3 hikes a day. Also, we ended up on our second to last full day here, getting a insane (by our standards, don't know about the locals, because they tend to get a lot of that sort of weather) hail storm with almost golf ball sized hail stones!

Here is a list of activities we did here:

• Horsethief Falls Trail (shared with take 2)
• Crags Trail
• Grouse Mountain Overlook Trail
• Raspberry Mountain Trail (no section this post)
• Florissant Fossil Beds National Monument
• Elk Meadow Loop Trail (no section this post)
• Preachers Hollow Trail (no section this post)
• Horsethief Falls Trail (Take 2)
• Vindicator Valley Trail
• Insane (by our standards) Hail Storm 

Crags Trail

Our second hike at Cripple Creek was Crags Trail (Regarding our first hike, it is shared with the second time we did that trail later down on this post). This was a nice trail that was mostly flat until the last 1/4 to 1/2 mile where it got much steeper. On this hike we got to see a female moose and her calf about 75-100' away which was cool. Once at the summit of Crags, we got to see the surrounding area which gives Crags its name, as well as Pikes Peak.

Grouse Mountain Overlook Trail

Our next hike after Crags was Grouse Mountain Overlook Trail. This was a nice short 1 mile trail that lead to the tallest point in Mueller State Park, Grouse Mountain, where we continued on about 1/8th of a mile to an overlook which had much better views of the surrounding area (approximately 300° views vs at the summit 140-150° views). 

Florissant Fossil Beds National Monument

Our first NPS site on this trip was Florrissant Fossil Beds National Monument. At Florrissant, over a thousand years ago, there was a volcano (Guffey Volcano, as it is known as today), forming a dam across a creek making ancient Lake Florrissant where a variation of lava and mud flowed through a Redwood forest (yep, there were Redwoods in Colorado back in the day) causing most of the redwoods to die leaving their stumps in that lava and mud mixture causing the tree stumps to be petrified. A similar thing happened at what is now Petrified Forest National Park in modern day Arizona. Then that lava and mud flowed into Lake Florrissant causing fish, water bugs, insects, and more to sink to the bottom and get covered in layers of paper shale.

Horsethief Falls Trail

Our first hike (and one of our last) in Cripple Creek was Horsethief Falls Trail. This was a nice trail that a decent chunk is a part of The Ring the Peak Trail which is a trail that goes around the whole base of the Pikes Peak. At the end of this trail, there is a cool waterfall. The first time we did it (also our first hike on this trip), we hadn't gotten used to the elevation yet, and the first part of the trail is pretty steep so we turned around and got pizza.

Vindicator Valley Trail

Our last hike in the Cripple Creek area, Vindicator Valley trail was cool for one major reason, which is the same reason it was made a trail: all of the old mining equipment we got to see on this trail. On this trail we got to see the remains of quite a few silver mines as well as one active silver mine. We ended up taking a short cut back after it looked like it was going to rain. Less than five minutes after we left the trailhead, it started to rain, and we were just about to pull into our campground and it started hailing on us!

Insane (by our standards) Hail Storm

To begin with, this hailstorm ended up starting right after we finished Vindicator Valley Trail as we were driving back to the RV. It started to rain, then as we were leaving Cripple Creek proper and going east (our campground was a few miles east of town), it started hailing and by the time we got to our campground, the hailstorm was dropping huge (by our standards) hailstones of about an inch in diameter! By this point, after staying at South Dakota a few times we are used to hailstorms dropping at best hailstones 1/16"-1/8" in diameter, so these hailstones were huge for us.