Displaying items by tag: Divide

Sentinel Point is a fairly unknown mountain on the west side of Pikes Peak. One can access the mountain by driving to Divide on Highway 24 and heading South on Highway 67 just past the old tunnel. The "Horsethief Park" trailhead, which provides access to both Sentinel Point and Pancake Rocks can be found roughly halfway between Divide and Cripple Creek. Having just purchased new snowshoes, my friend Ethan decided that he wanted to test them out. We departed Colorado Springs around 6:30 AM and began hiking around 7:45 AM. The trail begins fairly easy and we did not put on our snowshoes until we crossed the creek onto trail 704C to head North into Horsethief Park.

After crossing the stream, the trail brought us right up into Horsethief Park and provided us with some great views of some frozen over beaver ponds.

The views of Sentinel Point were great all day, and as we ventured up into Horsethief Park, the mountain seemed to keep an eye on our progress, measuring our worthiness.

Sentinel Point was very close!

Once in Horsethief Park, the trail splits and we stayed to the right and began bushwhacking up the steep slope of Sentinel Point.

In retrospect, it would have been prudent to stay to the North side of the mountain; however, the very steep and powdery west slope of Sentinal proved to be a great test for our snowshoes and our endurance! Once at tree-line, the terrain leveled out and we were able to make our way to the ridge-line and up to Sentinal Point proper. The views on this hike were outstanding, including some very uncommon viewpoints of Pikes Peak and Almagre Mountain.

I highly recommend this as a quick day-hike all year round.