CO Springs Area/ Pikes Peak

This will tell you everything to know about Pikes Peak:

http://www.14ers.com/photos/peakmain.php?peak=Pikes+Peak

Hi Ed
Just did Pikes Peak recently and snow is not a problem. Sounds like you will be later in the month but the PP Marathon and Ascent are on Aug 15-16. Would recommend Lost Creek Wilderness for a multi-day trip close to the Springs. Hope you enjoy your visit.
Ron

Just did Grays Peak with my 12 yr old over the weekend. No snow. Weather was awesome. Good luck breathing!

Thanks for the info fellas.

Any recommendations for good outdoor stores in Denver or Colorado Springs?

There are several REIs in Denver, if you go to the downtown flagship REI there is another store down the street call Wilderness Exchange. Sometimes they have good deals.

I would also suggest Lost Creek if you want a multi-day wilderness trip. There is some low altitude hiking there but it will be warm in August.

The Mountain Chalet, in the Springs, is a Great store and the folks there know what they are doing. The REI in the Springs is mediocre, like most.

Sounds good.
Is the best place to access LCW at the trailhead on the southwesst corner? Can you park there?

Snow shouldn't be an issue for Pikes, with the usual caveat that 'you never can tell for sure in the Rockies.' Peaking and descending in one day is very do-able if you're in halfway decent shape and leave early enough, by which I mean be at the Barr Trail trailhead in Manitou Springs around 04:30. It is not uncommon that by 05:00 the lot is full, and finding alternate parking can be painful. You cannot park in the cog railway lot! Barr Trail is very popular, but most of the dayhiker crowd make it no further than Barr Camp, and most of the rest make it no farther than the Alpine Hut. If you're worried about your ability to make the peak and back in one day (altitude) then take the earliest cog railway to Barr Camp and start from there. This has the added benefit of allowing you to park in the railway lot, and most of the truly great scenery is above Barr Camp, anyway.

I've only ever accessed Lost Creek Wilderness via the more southern trailheads. All of them are fine. The drive to Goose Creek passes through some pretty depressing burn scars before you get there, but they're slowly recovering, and the trail itself is untouched. Spruce Grove and the other one near there (Eagle Creek?) are nice, too. There is parking at all of them, but in the summer it can be crowded. Last month I took my daughter to Goose Creek and the lot was full and the sides of the access road were lined with cars for about a hundred meters. That was a particularly beautiful weekend, though, and Goose Creek is pretty popular. Probably less crowds at Spruce Grove, on average, and if there are it's easy to hit other trailheads from there. And unlike Goose Creek the road is paved.

It's important to note that LCW is not a classically mountainous Colorado hike, so if that's what you're looking for this ain't it. Still very scenic with neat rock formations, just not really mountainous per se.

I live in Colorado Springs and other than Lost Creek my favorite nearby spots are the Sangre de Cristo Mountains and Great Sand Dunes National Park. Which is sort of the same thing, actually. The Trails Illustrated map is adequate; the Sky Trails map is probably slightly better.

There's parking at all the trail heads for LCW. If you're only going to visit one time, you should probably do the Goose Creek Loop. It's by far the most popular loop but also the most scenic. It's the southeast TH. It's not that long but some people do it in 4 days. There's lost of exploring you can do. But you did say not much climbing and there is probably 5-6K on that loop. It's pretty hard to find much in the way of multi-day trips in CO without much climbing.

Lots of info available if you google Goose Creek Loop. We've had a VERY wet year so all streams you see on a map will have water. It's been a buggy season but hopefully that is starting to calm down. The Refrigerator Gulch array in particular tends to be buggy. If you're going counter clockwise (most people do) and want to camp around there, get water in the stream for camp but skip those camp sites. Head up the hill about a 1/4 mile and there's a spot on the left that's higher and breezier, and less buggy.