Contemplative Hiking

Fifteen minutes west of Boulder is a little cone-shaped hill called Sugarloaf Mountain. It resembles the head of an elephant in a way, with its bald scalp and what looks like sparse, spiky hair sticking up on one side, which are actually the weathered barks of burned trees which remained after a fire swept over the hill many years ago. There’s an established trail that winds around and up the hill, in a sort of wiggly half-spiral, all the way to the summit. Hiking up this trail makes me think of walking up the side of a soft-serve ice cream cone, with the reward in this case being an incredible and breathtaking 360 degree view of the landscape once you reach the top. To the east, there is Boulder and the plains. To the west, the entire expanse of the Divide. To the north, the foothills of Loveland and Ft. Collins, and to the south, the dark green and brown foothills of Boulder.

This isn’t a well-known or well-traveled trail. Even in the summer, only a few people come here on weekends, and when I went there yesterday (Friday afternoon), I was the only person on the trail. It made for an extraordinarily peaceful and contemplative hike.

You get to this trail by driving west on Canyon Boulevard out of Boulder, then turning onto Sugarloaf Road several miles down the canyon, past the Red Lion restaurant but well before Boulder Falls. You drive another 4.7 miles or so on Sugarloaf Road and turn right on Sugarloaf Mountain Road. If you’re not tracking your mileage or paying attention it’s easy to miss, because this is a sidestreet up a residential area of homes that set nestled all along the rolling, pine-covered hills. You will see Sugarloaf Mountain before you arrive at the intersection. The hill juts out of the landscape, with thick spruce and pine trees growing up one side, a grassy slope trailing down the other, and at the top are a cluster of sun-bleached trees stripped bare of their bark and branches (the “elephant head”).

Once you turn right on Sugarloaf Mountain Road, you’ll drive up a windy dirt road about a mile or so until you get to a wider area (almost, but not quite a dead end) where you’ll be able to park. The trail starts in the trees, not along the established dirt roads that junction off the parking lot (one of which is the 4WD, unmaintained Switzerland Trail). There’s a rusty bar across the rocky slope that signals “no motorized vehicles” at the start of the foot trail. Walk beyond that and you’ll pick up the trail.

You’ll need YakTrax if there’s any snow or ice on the trail, which there was plenty of yesterday. The walk is slightly steep at times and it’s easy to lose your footing if you aren’t properly equipped. Although this trail isn’t as popular as others in Boulder such as Chautauqua, when there is snow on the ground there are plenty of boot tracks that indicate which way to go. It’s not as obvious toward the bottom of the hill, where the trail winds around back and forth before it begins its narrower ascent around the outer edge of Sugarloaf.

Because this hike is well west of Boulder, it is very quiet. You’ll hear the occasional car struggling up the steep road below or a barking dog. Otherwise, there is very little road noise. You’ll be able to hear the chattering and cheeping of birds in the trees. Yesterday I saw several robins (is that typical? Not sure). A squirrel may also announce your presence, and I’m sure it’s possible that deer frequent the trail lower down at the base of the hill.

This hike could be very windy, since the hill sticks up out of the landscape so much and is situated between the plains and the Divide. Yesterday was unusually calm, almost no breeze at all, not even at the top. It made it even more quiet without the rustling of the wind through the trees.

This hike is by far my favorite in Boulder when it comes to views. Since I planned it to be a sunset hike on a very clear, very crisp winter day, I knew that I would be in for a lot of beauty. That’s why I decided to turn it around on myself and open up to a slightly different experience: waiting for beauty to present itself to me, since I came looking for it in the first place.

The Activity

This is meant to be a sunset or sunrise hike, so plan on arriving at least one hour before the official time of either, since this hike will take you about an hour, roundtrip. Bring a flashlight in case it’s dark when you’re walking down or up in low light.

At the start of every contemplative hike it’s good to stop and set an intention. It’s best to do it out loud, although if you’re alone and there are other hikers nearby it may feel a little bit embarrassing (“oh great, another weirdo on the trail talking to herself”). The intension on this particular hike is to be mindful, but not to look for beauty. Instead, allow beauty to find you.

The key to contemplative hiking is to find the right balance of mindfulness without trying too hard to “look” for inspiration or a transpersonal experience. I will blog about exactly how to do a contemplative hiking in a later post, but for now, remember that you don’t want to let your mind wander off and become preoccupied with your life back home (work, bills, drama, to-do lists) and you don’t want to be so focused on having an “experience” that you aren’t open to one and are instead intellectualizing and analyzing everything that happens as it happens. You want to observe your surroundings but refrain from asking yourself what something means or having a lot of judgment around it in the moment. There will be plenty of time for reflection later, when you’re home.

This is especially important on this hike, where you want to let beauty find you. You know you’ll be seeing amazing views. Imagine your mind as a sponge rather than as an arrow, absorbing rather than observing.

If you remain in this open state, you’ll be surprised by what you will see and feel. You may even have an experience about beauty that has nothing to do with the view. The key is to remain open and not analyze.

I don’t even want to describe some of the key aspects of the trail, since I don’t want to influence what you might experience as beautiful or not.

When you arrive at the top, ask yourself what being in this place reminds you of, or makes you feel. I had feelings of being in deep wilderness, perhaps looking out at a mountain range in Alaska. I read a book not too long ago entitled, “Minus 148°” about the first-ever winter ascent of Denali by a small group of climbers. It described the most brutally cold, desolate climb in the deepest of wilderness at the time it was attempted. I know that Sugarloaf Mountain (hill) is nothing like Denali in the winter, but there was something about the view of Long’s Peak and Indian Peaks Wilderness, the fading deep blues and grays of the horizon, and the silence of the summit that made me feel I was having an adventure beyond the reality.

If you’re open, you can evoke new and interesting feelings and experiences on a hike that are beyond present reality. They’re transpersonal, which means beyond ego, beyond the self, and beyond the physical realm.

The sun finally set over the distant mountains as I descended down the last fourth of the trail. The hike had certainly presented many surprises for me in terms of what felt beautiful. It was a deeper, richer experience than simply going on one of the most scenic hikes in Boulder to LOOK for the obvious beauty.

Tags: boulder, colorado, contemplative hikes, solitary hikes, sugarloaf mountain, sunset hikes

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