We went up to Boulder today and went for a hike at Chautauqua Park.  My goal has been to find short hikes suitable for a 4 year old (or as he says 4 and 4 quarters!)

We lucked into a pretty good route.

Our hike began at the foot of the Flatiron Mountains.  It actually stayed at the foot of these mountains the entire time.

Davey stopped to show me the “pollen” in this flower.  He explained that because he is small, he can easily see it.

There were just a couple of tricky parts to our walk that made things a little difficult for Davey (and me).

We had to go up a long incline at the very beginning.  Davey got tired.  It was definitely heart pounding.

Once we made it up this hill though, the trail was nice and level through the woods, and then we wound down back to the beginning.  We had to be a little careful in the woods as the trail was rocky and stair-stepped in places.  We stopped to enjoy the view several times as well.

At one point, we came to a fork in the trail.  The trail to our left had a sign posted.  I wish I’d thought to take a picture of it.  It said something about there being a lot of bear activity on that trail and that if we could, we should avoid it.  We definitely wanted to avoid it, and we went the other way. Right after that a girl came by and Davey said something to her about watching for bears.

We watched her pass and saw her taking off onto the trail which had the sign posted about the bears.  Davey said, “uh oh.”

Davey’s eyes are closed in this shot, but we had to get a picture of how he managed to get really dirty in very little time.  He enjoys dirt.

I spotted this tree.  I love the unusual bend in the little trunk and how it is standing there all by itself.  (I think the pine needles are heart-shaped.) David got a nice shot.

We wound out of the woods and worked our way down a big open space.  This is where we saw the sweet tree, and then a nice view of the Flatirons again.

This was a beautiful hike.  The uphill at the beginning was a little hard on Davey, but fortunately he had Daddy to carry him up.  Other than that, he just had to watch his step in places (so did I!).