Devil's Head Hike

Julia and I went hiking together on Labor Day. It was her first real hike, about 3 miles round trip to the top of Devil's Head and the fire lookout station.  The lookout is the only one of seven origin front range stations still in service - at almost one hundred years old, it's a unique piece of history and fun experience for people of all ages. It's the only lookout station in Colorado staffed by the National Forest Service and is on the National Register of Historic Places. There's an interesting article about it here.

For Julia and I, the drive and hike took most of the day.  There were tons of people there, and we had to stop an climb on every big rock or play "pine cone golf" with Julia's hiking pole every few feet, or stop and goof around about something. One of her favorite games was for me to stop and wait for her to hike ahead, wait for her thumbs up, then run to catch up with her before she could get away.  Large, Dad assisted jumps off of the steps were also pretty fun.

Julia did great and had a lot of fun.  At the end she was able to get her picture taken with Ranger Bill, a semi-celebrity and veteran of the lookout of over 30 years. If you think your office has a good view, it's probably not better than his 100 mile view in every direction.