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Walker Ranch
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Walker Ranch has two major segments.
The Meyers Homestead Trail is a narrow ranch road through open pines,
firs, and grassland, and along a small watercourse, a small trickle
in March but ice-filled. At the top, there is an overlook and views
of Sugarloaf, burned on the top from last summer's fires, and the
Indian Peaks beyond.
The trail is a simple walk NW up the
bottom of a valley, and I had walked it several times before, so what
I was really curious about was the valley heights to the SW, 3 - 600
ft. higher. From the overlook, I turned S and SSW and climbed pretty
much up the fall line. I encountered a few ax blazes and a spotty
social trail, I climbed over and around lots of fallen trunks and up
to the ridge line. The day was quiet. There was only the crunch of
step and snap of twig. The sky was coldly gray -- not a breath of
breeze. A raven flew over and gave me two caws and a very soft liquid
gurgling purr.
The walk along the ridge was
comfortable -- quite open woodland. I descended into a slight saddle,
among big boulders, fallen logs, and into a little aspen grove. Here,
there was a great cacophony of tweets, cheeps, and twitters. "What
ever woke them up?"
The bushwhack became slower, but I was
interested to encounter, every now and then, old footprints in
patches of snow. I'd get to feel alone and solitary, and then,
Robinson Crusoe--like, a Friday footprint would appear. And then, on
the highpoint of the ridge, just before the descent into the valley
again, I found a cairn. I saw no trails near, no other sign of
visitation, but here was a cairn, maybe 6 ft. high, of carefully
fitted stone. Certainly not the usual jumbled pile of stones but with
smooth profile and symmetrical. It was probably an overreaction
arising out of my slow, meditative meander through mostly "trackless
wilderness," but I briefly felt as though I'd stumbled across a
visiting space ship -- not threatening, but only quietly impressive.
Usually, one is moved to add a rock or two to any cairn, but this one
was just right as it was. I thought, any spot with a cairn as nice as
this one is clearly worth visiting. I also had a view of Gross
Reservoir, Eldorado Peak, South Boulder Peak and Bear and Green, and
views on east to the plains.
I made my way down slope to a power
line running SW--NE, followed that down to the valley trail and
returned to the trailhead.
 
Raven
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Meyers Homestead Trail.
Sugarloaf and Back Range from Homestead Overlook.
Looking NE from ridge, down into Homestead valley.
Looking east along ridge.
The cairn on a highpoint.
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Another day, I returned, this time to
the Loop Trailhead, overlooking Tom Davis Gulch and centered on South
Boulder Creek. I began in an area that had been burned over in a 2000
wildfire, with scorched trees both lying and standing, but with deer
prints impressed into the soft surface of a wide, comfortable trail.
Great towers of rock were all the more dominant for being cleared of
foreground vegetation.
We had just come through a few days of
soaking rain that felt unusual and good, but the winter had been dry
so I suppose it will all average out. For now though, grasses are
emerging and tiny leaves forming in the aspens and woody brush, like
a soft green mist over the ground. In the summer, this will be a hot,
dry, exposed place.
I listened to the roar of S Boulder
Creek, down in the bottom of the gulch and gradually worked my way
down. At the creek, I found maybe an old trail that turned east and
followed the left bank of the creek. It seemed much more than a
fisherman's social trail, but it petered out in a few hundred yards
and it was not marked on my map. A nice little side jaunt, though,
with towers of jumbled rocks, tall cedars and pines, and among fallen
branches and burn. The air is closer here, moist with the roar of the
creek, and still slightly acrid from the old burn, an intimate trail
just above and sometimes directly on the banks of the creek, tumbling
and sparkling white water.
I walked back to the main trail, tuned
upstream, and passed the 1-mile marker, picnic tables on the left, by
the creek, and over a bridge. I sat on a bench overlooking a peaceful
eddy and rough water beyond.
I climbed steeply out of the gulch,
through more burn, past a bluebird flitting from one dead tree to
another, through a few sprinkles of rain, into warm sunshine that
brought out the heavy resin smell of a pine-needle carpet, and past
patches of snow in a few shaded spots.
At the top of this stretch, I passed a
trailhead on Gross Dam Road and watched an Amtrak passenger train
heading west. I walked through open ranch land toward Eldorado Mt. to
the east and into unburned pine and fir. Switchbacks took me down
into a gulch and gave me a peek through Eldorado Canyon to plains
beyond. A jay chattered at me with no more to say than the squirrels
have. I walked over an exposed slope, again with the roar of the
creek below, and descended steep switchbacks into a narrow canyon and
down to the falls, churning and boiling.
The trail up is a pretty civilized
ranch road. I passed a trail that comes over to Walker Ranch from
Eldorado Canyon, so the state park offers another trailhead access to
this area. I climbed past forest, field, and a few tumbled structures
and other ranch flotsam. A trail comes down from the Ethel Harrold
Picnic Area and Trailhead, and the Loop then veers west as a narrow
path into a small gulch along a laughing, bubbling stream and a
15-ft. cascade -- very green -- the old fire skipped this stretch,
too. Finally, I climbed through thick forest and out into the open
space where I began. There is a nice view there of four bends in S
Boulder Creek, as it comes down from Gross Reservoir.
Below, a bluebird and jay.
     
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Start of Loop, above Tom Davis Gulch.
Side trail along S Boulder Creek.
Above the falls.
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  -- Trail Map PDF -- Trail Profile PDF
Getting There
From Boulder, drive west on Baseline
Rd. and up Flagstaff Rd. Leave the City of Boulder Mt. Parks just
after mile marker 5, and continue down 2.2 mi. more to the Meyers
Homestead trailhead on the right. The Meyers Homestead Trail is 2.6
mi., one way. Another 0.4 mi. brings you to the Walker Ranch Loop
trailhead. Turn left at the sign and drive 0.2 mi. farther to the
parking lot. The Loop is 7.6 mi. round trip. Note that there are
other trailheads associated with the Loop trail, the Ethel Harrold
Picnic Area and Trailhead, east on Pike and Bison Roads, the Crescent
Meadows trailhead on Gross Dam Rd. to the south, and a third in
Eldorado Canyon State Park several miles to the east. A map and a map
brochure at the Loop Trailhead locates these spots in more detail, or click on the thumbnails above. A trail map for all of Boulder County is available
from the Boulder Area Trails Coalition (find link on home page).
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- Search for other books on hiking in and around
Boulder's, Indian Peaks:
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