January 17, 2021

By Tim Briese

4.4 miles, 1700’ elevation gain, 2:50 roundtrip time

Mt. Sanitas is a nice peak just northwest of Boulder that is extremely popular among the fitness-crazed Boulderites. My daughter Emily and I had wanted to climb it together for quite a while and seized an opportunity to do it on a pleasant January day. She had done it before a few times but this was my first time. Snowfall had been unusually light along the Front Range so far this winter and the trail was virtually dry, with just a little ice in a couple of shady places. There are two trails to the top, the standard trail up the south ridge and a steep, rougher trail that switchbacks up the east side. Many people elect to do them both in a loop and that is what we did too. Emily knew about a place to park that is off the beaten path along Linden Avenue northeast of the peak that avoided the jammed trailhead lot on the south side and this worked out well. At 10:20 we left the parking area at about 5600’ elevation and headed south on a trail then forked to the right to begin the steep climb to the summit. This was an excellent trail but quite steep and rocky in many places with a little class 2+ rock work.

emily on the way up the mt. sanitas trail

There were many people and dogs on the trail today, hikers, runners, young and old, but mostly young, many of them college students probably, with the most common demographic being young women with their dogs. We saw a couple of hundred hikers on this Sunday in January, which was actually fewer than Emily expected. I wondered how many might be here on a busy day! It was nice to see that mask compliance was quite good during this pandemic time. It took us just over an hour to climb 1300’ to the summit. There were quite a few other people up there so we did not linger long in the interest of social distancing.

a view of boulder from near the summit

a plaque on the summit

We headed down the more popular south ridge trail, finding many steps and rocks on it.

on the way down

a view of the indian peaks to the west

approaching the bottom

Upon reaching the bottom we turned left onto a wide and smooth trail that runs along the base of the peak, re-gaining about 400’ of elevation gain to a saddle before descending back down the trail we had come up, and returned to our vehicle. This was a fun and scenic climb, a nice invigorating workout in the middle of winter.