DOUGLAS COUNTY — In our exclusive series Adventures with Alan, we'll travel across Southern Colorado week-by-week to show you thrills and chills, hidden gems and well-known spots.
Along Highway 83 about 30 minutes from the heart of Colorado Springs is the Lincoln Mountain Open Space.
At 876 acres, it's roughly the same size as Palmer Park, with two major loops to explore.
Hiking the Lincoln Mountain Loop
This is a popular trail for hiking, mountain biking and horseback riding.
It covers 4.2 miles and around 400 feet of elevation gain.
The single-track trail is well marked, but watch your step, there's quite a few horse pies that you'll want to avoid.
After a relatively flat start to the hike, we come to our first crossroads about two-tenths of a mile in.
From here, we follow the trail left towards Lincoln Mountain.
At this point, there's a few switchbacks as we enter the steepest part of the trail.
As you might know from previous adventures, I'm NOT a big fan of switchbacks.
That said, these aren't too difficult, and there's only a handful to get through.
Switchbacks aside, the variety of terrain on this trail can be a little challenging...from packed dirt to loose rock.
As we rise above the forested slopes, the trail plateaus as we reach the top of Lincoln Mountain, and the views up here are tough to beat.
Lincoln Mountain — Elevation 7,394 feet
At almost 7,400 feet, the top of Lincoln Mountain is relatively flat.
Up here, there's a 1.2 mile loop that serves as a nice addition to this hike.
It offers wide open scenic vistas of the mountains to our west and the Plains to our east.
The main problem...there's not much shade.
On the backside of the loop, there's more incredible views to soak in of Pikes Peak and the Front Range.
Honestly, I'm amazed by how something so familiar such as Pikes Peak can look entirely new from this vantage point.
After reaching the end of the 1.2 mile loop on top of Lincoln Mountain, we begin our descent back down to the trailhead below.
Lincoln Mountain Open Space rating
Now it's time to rate my latest adventure.
For difficulty, there are a few challenging parts, as well as some variations to the type of terrain on the trail. We're going to score this 3.5 out of 5.
For scenery, being east of I-25, I found the views of the Front Range, Pikes Peak and Palmer Divide to be different than what I'm used to, but still super stunning. 4.5 out of 5.
When it comes to fun level, I really enjoyed this one, and I think you will too! 4 out of 5.
Now for my final score! Let's rate this one 4 out of 5 stars.
__
Watch KOAA News5 on your time, anytime with our free streaming app available for your Roku, FireTV, AppleTV and Android TV. Just search KOAA News5, download and start watching.
