Herman Gulch

This year for the 4th of July, Tanya and I decided to hike Herman Gulch. It’s a 6.5 mile hike we’ve done before and loved it. The Herman Gulch hike is very popular so we were a little concerned about how many people would be on the trail during a holiday weekend. Despite this, we headed out the morning of the 4th, masks in hand. Gracie, Tanya’s cat, decided to pass on the hike and hang out in the sink.

Getting to Herman Gulch trailhead

Herman Gulch is a very easy trail to find. We headed west out of Denver on I-70 expecting to hit a fair amount of traffic. It wasn’t bad, though, with the only slow down happening on Floyd Hill and through Idaho Springs, pretty typical on a weekend. There were the usual aggressive drivers although Tanya was lucky to have me, a really chill driver, handling the wheel. 🙂 She might disagree with that assessment.

The trailhead is right off exit 218. As expected on a holiday weekend, the lot was completely full and several cars were parked along the exit ramp for overflow. We were lucky to find a spot along the ramp. There wasn’t a crowd at the trailhead since we were starting a little later than most.

Herman Gulch trail

The initial part of the hike takes you away from the noisy I-70 corridor and heads up to meet Herman Creek. Once you get here, the trail loses the highway noise and becomes a typical mountain hike.

The trail meanders through the forests for about a mile where the trees give way to a grassy open space with views of the mountains to the northwest. Tanya said it reminded her of the Swiss Alps. Herman Lake, the destination, is below the ridges a few miles away.

At about two miles, we looked back and noticed some rain clouds had moved in south of I-70. The weather forecast had called for 100% chance of rain at Georgetown so we knew we had to keep an eye out for storms.

We met several people along the trail. It really wasn’t anything too bad which was a bit of a surprise given the crowded parking lot.

Herman Lake

The trail has a steeper climb as you approach Herman Lake. We met a fair number of people that were coming down as we were doing this final segment so we must have come behind the crowd. There were maybe 15 people at the lake so things weren’t busy. There was plenty of room to find some space to ourselves.

The weather was amazing and sunny. Things were still darker to the south. We felt lucky the sun gods were smiling on our little spot for the 4th!

Easy descent with some rain

We enjoyed sandwiches and hydration, then headed down. Leaving the lake we saw the storms to the south which made for a great picture.

There were more pictures of one of my favorite subjects, flowers, during the descdent. Summer in the high country sure is beautiful.

We started hearing distant thunder about a mile after leaving the lake. We weren’t worried about lightening as the storms were far off, and we were down in the gulch. A short time later, a light rain started with the accompanying temperature drop. Light rain in the forest is one of my favorite things. It made for a nice, relaxing hike back to the lot which was pretty empty when we returned.

It was a great way to spend the 4th, hiking in the mountains with my honey.