This winter, I had been enjoying the occasional week-day morning hike to a wintery objective. My plan for the morning was to tag the summit of St. Vrain Mountain, and possibly Meadow Mountain as well as a short sidetrip from the saddle. These two peaks are on the SE boundary of Rocky Mountain National Park and the NE boundary Indian Peaks Wilderness. The summits of both St. Vrain and Meadow Mountains offer sweeping views of the Rocky Mountain National Park to the north and Indian Peaks Wilderness to the south. The approach is in the Indian Peaks wilderness, and starts just outside of Allenspark; the trailhead is quite accessible—even in the winter you can drive to within 0.5 miles of the summer trailhead. Moreover, with nearly 3,500 foot gain to the summit of St. Vrain Mountain (and about 2,800 ft gain to the summit of Meadow Mountain), this makes is a good fitness hike.

When I reached the saddle between St. Vrain Mountain and Meadow Mountain, I was greeted with a rather incessant 39 mph wind (or at least 39 mph was what was forecasted, but it felt stronger to me). But I wasn't going to turn around without at least one summit. Meadow Mountain was closer, so I shoved my snowshoes under a rock (snowshoes were not necessary for the bare windblown rocky slopes) and scrambled to the summit of Meadow Mountain. The wind was knocking me about quite a bit, but I made it, and snapped some photos of the spectacular view of snow-clad summits of the Indian Peaks as well as Longs Peak to the north. When I got back to the saddle, I started to head for St. Vrain Mountain (I don't like giving up on an objective), but the wind was a bit difficult to even walk against and I had a day of schoolwork to get back for, so I decided to turn around and leave St. Vrain's summit for a calmer day.

My round trip time to the summit of Meadow Mountain and staggering around a bit at the saddle was 4.5 hours.

Below is a sampling of photos from my morning out. Well worth it despite the wind!