Hiking Mt. Garfield (6,765') in Colorado

This might be the best short hike I’ve done.

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We still had several hours of daylight after climbing Otto’s Route. Dennis and Crisco were going mountain biking, but I wanted to climb a mountain instead. As we were hiking back to the car from Mt. Garfield, Crisco pointed out Mt. Garfield across the valley. He said that it was a popular hike for locals. There wasn’t a ton of time left in the day so any long hikes were out, but this one didn’t look like it could have been more than a few miles.

I pulled out my laptop at the McDonald’s (free wifi) in Fruita and found out how to get to the trailhead. I also found out that the hike was 2 miles long (one way) with a 2,000 foot elevation gain. Definitely doable in an afternoon.

Here are some pics from the spectacular hike.

Mt. Garfield as seen on the hike out from climbing Otto's Route.

Looking up at the summit from the trailhead. The hike goes up the right-most of the two prominent foreground ridges.

The sign at the trailhead.

Beautiful rock/mud spires.

My shadow on the ridge.

The weight of the boulders compacts the ground underneath them. The compacted earth resists erosion more than the stuff around it, and the result is these crazy dirt spires with boulders on top.