Button Rock Mountain via Hall Ranch.

It's been a bit internet world.  Fear ye not, I've not stopped hiking.  In fact, I've added another dimension to my time spent in the mountains, and have been running a bunch.  

I've hated running for most of my life.  I blame high school gym class, where we had to run the mile.  But we were never given any instruction on how to run, and I'd go out too fast and blow up within two laps of the track.  

In seeking routes to do for training, visiting peaks has, at times, gone to the wayside.  But as the weather warms and the snow starts to melt, I'm looking forward to getting up in elevation, and running some high peaks.  

With a not great weather prediction for this week, I decided to stay lower and revisit an old favorite, but to take a different and perhaps more interesting route to get there.  Thus, I found myself at Hall Ranch, geared up and ready to go. 

Everything hurt at first, but the scenery certainly inspired.
I started up the Nighthawk Trail, the pedestrian and equestrian only option.  It's a nice one.

Higher up, and nearing the first intersection of the day.

You can continue along the Nighthawk Trail to join Nelson Loop, or take a left to head west to Button Rock Preserve and Ralph Price Reservoir.  This road is the same access road that intersects Nighthawk near the beginning, Bitterbrush twice, and Nelson twice.  

I took a slight right to get on the Button Rock trail.  While not technically difficult, it is just a little more fun to run than the old jeep road.

But the fun doesn't last long, and soon you rejoin the road for about a mile.

The Button Rock trail picks up again on the right.  This intersects Sleep Lion once you enter Button Rock Preserve.
I took a right on Sleepy Lion for the fun and fast technical downhill.  Then I took Longmont Dam Road up to the ranger station, and the shoreline trail west.  The trail skirts ranked Boulder County peak 7071, and also provides access to Cook Mountain, another ranked Boco peak.
At the far end of the shoreline trail, you meet up with Longmont Dam Road once again.  Why not just take it through?  Well, because it's private, and signed on the reservoir side, and as I would soon discover, fenced and gated on the other side.
I took a right on Longmont Dam Road, then a left at the first old jeep road to head for Coulson Gulch.

The old jeep road.

In Higgins Park, nearing Coulson Gulch.  I was feeling pretty good thus far, and enjoying the scenery.  I've seen lots of remnants of the lives people once had up here.  It's difficult to imagine living in this place 50 or 100 years ago, as it would be hard and time consuming to get to now, even with a modern 4wd vehicle.  

This road eventually runs into Coulson Gulch, trail 916.  It's a modest climb at first, but some steeper sections come, generally in the first mile.  I've included this trail on a few runs recently- this was the first time I managed to hit it while still feeling pretty good.  The uphill went smoothly, with the climb taking about 35 minutes.  By the time I reached the top, I was 15 miles in.  

At the top of Coulson Gulch, and pretty far from my starting point.
I took a right here, joining jeep road 118-1 for a very short time, before taking a steep trail on the left up to a trashed campsite.  I took the once thin exit trail out of this site, which I recently discovered had been given an interesting name by someone...

Best trail name ever?  It's short, but fun to ride, and fun to run.  At least it's much better than staying on the jeep road!
I got off the trail at one of the pull outs along the jeep road, and headed down a steep section before taking a right into another one of the pull outs along the road.  Here, you join a now blocked off shoot of the road (118-3 on your Forest Service map), and then hit some sweet single track on the right.  It winds up and up, and eventually joins the remnants of the road, which have now been largely reclaimed by nature.  It's back to single track in most places.
I took a right on to the trail that meets the loop around Button Rock Mountain.  I'd originally planned to run the entire loop, but the day was getting on, and I decided to just hit the summit and turn around.  Plus, I still had to go all the way back to Hall Ranch!

I hit the summit at 4:10 PM.  I was 18.33 miles in, and I was feeling the isolation.  I made sure to pay attention to footing on the way down, to avoid both injury and snakes! 
A quick snack and I was on my way.  I'd abandoned my plans to head up higher due to the weather, and it had been nice so far.  But as they say, if you don't like the weather in Colorado, just wait ten minutes.  It went from sunny and warm to cold and snowy in a heart beat.

Back on the jeep road for a short stint, just before the snow hit.
I continued along the jeep road (118-1 to 118-2A), losing elevation before reentering the Button Rock property.  This trail is on the USGS map, but not on the Forest Service map.  It is on the excellent MapBuilder Topo layer on Caltopo, a good place to look to find the trails that aren't on any other maps.  It parallels Rattlesnake Gulch while staying up from the drainage a bit. 
Things look promising at first, with distinct single track visible beyond the entrance. 

But what's that sign say?  Hard to tell, but looks like, "The trails in this area have been seeded to restore vegetation".

The effort was successful, because it quickly goes from easy to follow single track to this.  Maybe there's a trail there?  It becomes pretty difficult to follow, but I'd suggest bearing to your left when you feel like you are off the trail.  There are some electrical boxes along the descent.  Unknown if they still go to anything or what they might go to, as there are no residences in the area.  

I finally hit a more distinct road, and was grateful to be on some easier terrain.  I'd planned to take Longmont Dam Road back, but here discovered that this side is fenced and gated, but not signed as private.  I suppose I could've used that argument if a resident were to confront me for being on the road, but instead I descended along the road back to meet the shoreline trail.

Higher up on the road.  At least it was a few easy miles before the undulations and rocky technicality of the shoreline trail. 
Soon I was at the dam, and took the short trail down to join the old road that runs back to Hall Ranch.  I decided to take the road for a longer stint, rather than take a short downhill on Sleepy Lion to rejoin the shorter western section of Button Rock trail.

But I had to take the more eastern section.  You could also follow the road on the right if desired. 
I got back to my much earlier departure place from Nighthawk, and took the short connector to Nelson.  I ran the more fun (in my opinion) north side of the trail, and then hit Bitterbrush. 

I paused briefly at the top for a look down the trail.  Only two.something more miles to go!  This is one of my favorite sections of trail to run at Hall.  It's pretty fun to hit the downhills at speed.

And a look back at where I was.  Interestingly, you can't even see the summit from here.  I encountered a few friendly mountain bikers on the way down, and got back to the car shortly before 8 PM.  What a day!  I changed, drank the extra water I'd brought along, and headed for home.
It's a day, but this provided a fun and interesting approach to this peak.  I ended up covering 35.83 miles with 5399 feet of elevation gain in 8 hours, 18 minutes, and two seconds, a 13:54 minute per mile pace.  It was certainly a good training run.  I felt pretty good for almost all of it, and this was my longest and fastest paced effort to date. 
Link to run map on Caltopo.

Coffintop Mountain via Hall Ranch/Bitterbrush TH.

This is what real winter is like.  Last winter at this time I was hiking 13ers, smaller and minor peaks on the east side of the park, lakes, basically anything I wanted!  This year it just keeps snowing, and the crazy avalanche conditions have been keeping me at home or on lower elevation peaks (though lower doesn't always mean safer).
This week I set out for Coffintop Mountain from Hall Ranch.  I actually saw it on Caltopo while I was using the 'view from here' feature to see what peaks I could see from my house.  I'd never heard of it, but as it is quite prominent from Longmont, I decided I must climb it!
There are a few different routes up one can take- there are several places to start from Route 7 besides Hall Ranch which would make a shorter day for sure.  It is also climbable from Button Rock Reservoir.  But starting at Bitterbrush would give me north of 12 miles and 2500+ feet of gain for the day, so that was the option I took.

I didn't start until almost 11.  It was nice to not have to get up super early.  Coffintop is the flatish peak center in this photo, taken from near the lower parking lot at Hall.  Route 7 on the left.
I took the Nighthawk trail up until the junction with the Button Rock trail.  I continued on this trail west, passing the first road that I came to (marked with a sign that said 3), and then struck out south a bit later when I started to loose elevation along the road.
From looking at the topo, it looked like I could stay on the ridge which starts south of the road around the prominent closed loop marking 6800 feet.  This is what I did.  I gained elevation and eventually ran into some fresh footprints on what looked like a trail of some sort.  They went the way I wanted to go for some time, so I followed them. 

Of course there are false summits along the way, but it's easy to know where to go once you see the peak.  Here the prints I'd been following went off south, so I set out towards the peak.  This was the hardest part of the day as I was postholing into knee deep snow with every step upwards.

This crazily twisted pine grew near the summit.
There is some debate about the summit.  The topo shows the northern closed loops to be the high point at 8049 feet.  Others have commented and I agree that the southern summit looks higher.  I've even found someone whose GPS showed it to be higher, yet the error was +/- 16 feet which means it could be lower.

Looking to the southern summit from the northern.
I can say the cairn marking the summit is near but not on the southern summit.  I didn't find a register.

Looking towards the northern summit from the southern.

 

This point is slightly south of the cairn and looks to be the true high point.  It was fun to make the short scramble up this is very windy and icy conditions.  

The cairn in front of a usual sight this winter- a storm sitting on the continental divide.

Good views of Button Rock Reservoir.  Button Rock Mountain is the high point behind the reservoir in this photo.

Going down was much easier than going up.  Plunge stepping and boot skiing though the snow ensued.  The day was very pretty and nice- the highest temperature I noted was in the low 40's though the wind made things feel cooler.

Eventually I started to follow my tracks back.  I stopped for a snack here.

This is the sign that I went by on my way out.  If I went again, I'd take a left here and then start up on this side.

I made it back to Hall, and decided to take Nelson Loop to Bitterbrush to get back to the parking lot.  Hall is buried in snow.  It was melting a bit as I got lower, but things were super muddy in those places.  I can't wait to ride it!

And more!

Coffintop as seen from Bitterbrush trail.  The sun was starting to go down, and I made it back to the parking lot shortly after it set.

Near full moon over Indian Lookout Mountain.
I arrived back at the truck to find this day took me seven hours, one more than I predicted.  Of course the conditions slowed things down remarkably, but that is to be expected.  This would likely be a much easier day in the summer.  But of course, it was still fun to get out and do something rather than sit at home and wish avalanche conditions were looking better.  RMNP might be out for the moment, but there are still other places to go that can offer fun and challenge. 
Coffintop Moutain via Hall Ranch:
12.5 miles round trip, 2536 foot gain(5500-8036).  Second class.  Moderate+.