Mountain Falcon Park, Castle Trail

The cold season hit us hard this last week, so despite ridiculous un-cold-seasonably warm temperatures, I was not able to muster up much interest from a sickly [s]caq in logging some trail time this weekend. Saturday, despite our sore throats and runny noses, we put up some lights on the house, picked up a Christmas tree, cleaned and refilled the pond, cleaned the bathrooms, and, at the instruction of the homeowner, spread excess nitrogen on our yard so that the nearby reservoir will stay green. Abbey marched with her band, decorated in lights, in Denver's Parade of Lights both Friday and Saturday night -- and she stayed out pretty late Saturday night after the parade.

That left me riding alone Sunday morning, which doesn't happen very often, so I thought I would ride something none of the rest of the scaq would want to ride. Something steep and rocky. Mount Falcon Park's Castle Trail, from the east side, would be that. I'd ridden this once before, back in 2012, prior to the knee surgery in which my friendly surgeon destroyed the underside of my left patella. Whether the Castle Trail is a tough ride or not depends on your perspective, and whether you're an ordinary human, but it climbs a solid 1600 feet in a little over two miles on a rather rocky trail. It's a good ride, a solid work out. Once up top, I head to the other side of the park and did a loop around the Parmalee Gulch trail, which drops steeply and then climbs back up a few hundred feet. It was on the ascent from Parmalee Gulch where I started feeling patella pain again. Since we don't usually ride trails that are quite this intense, and we haven't been riding as frequently this fall, it might have been a little much. And I'm not very good at taking it easy.

On the way up the Castle Trail, there are some nice views of Denver and the surrounding foothills.

It was short ride, only about 12 miles, so I was off the trail before noon. If my knee holds, perhaps I'll do it with Quinn in another year or two.