Last week my "Women With Altitude" hiking group tackled the
Shrine Mountain Trail. The trailhead is off of Shrine Mountain Road, about 2.3 miles past where it peels off the Vail Pass Rest Area parking lot in Colorado. We'd been told by friends that the wildflowers were particularly beautiful on this trail, and they were soooooo right! The photos below don't do them justice. The first photo is of most of the group (minus the photographers), and the next three are of wildflowers.
Then there are the views! Once you reach the top of the ridge, you can
see Mt. Holy Cross off to the southwest, the Gore Range to the north and
the Tenmile Range to the east. Also, there's the "shrine" itself, a
bulwark of a red rock formation (as seen in the first photo below) across a small hanging valley from the
ridge the trail goes on (in the second photo).
And there were beautiful but deadly mushrooms. All in all, a fine day for a hike with fine company!
