Roosevelt National Forest, Lions Gulch

It has been a good while since I hiked the Lions Gulch trail into the Homestead Meadows area. Conor and I have attacked the meadows from different trails multiple other times, but not up the dreaded Lions Gulch with it’s 1500+ ft elevation gain an 3 miles trail, some considered pretty tough terrain.

This time around Tim decided to go on the hike with us, which is great! This trail was one of my first ‘long’ hikes, being 6+ miles round trip so I knew it would be a good confidence booster for him and the pay-off at the end of the trail (the old homesteads) is always a nice thing to have.

We had started hiking by 6:30 am because of the incoming heat of the day. We knew that by 9am it would be scorching so we wanted to make the climb up into the meadows with the milder temperatures. We made the first mile pretty quickly, but once we started snaking over the river back and forth, the forest became very lush and thick with berry bushes and flowers. Tim and I chowed on some wild berries while Tim and Conor both spent ample time taking pictures of the plant-life and the forest all around. I just continued walking at a very mellow pace and they caught up to me every couple minutes without much of a strain. This part of the trail was simply amazing… and I thoroughly enjoyed it. It was easily the prettiest I have seen this trail in the 3-4 times I have hiked it in the past.

When it was all said and done, Tim and I put in about 7 miles. Conor went off and did a few more miles further into the meadows area. Tim and I made back home before lunch, and luckily so. By then it was wall into the 90’s and brutally hot. We were both pretty well tired out, as the trail is a rough one, but the fact that Tim up’d his hiking record to 7 miles is a major plus.