Green Mountain Falls Waterfalls

Saturday morning, we slept in a little and had another fantastic breakfast at Innhale and then checked out.  Our first stop was at Rainbow Falls Historic Site just up the road.  We managed to get a parking space and started hiking down the short paved trail.  There were some little cascades along Fountain Creek.

The paved trail ended under the Highway 24 bridge with a nice view of Rainbow Falls.

A rock-hopped into the creek for a nice view of the falls, despite the sunny conditions.

On the short hike back, we followed a path down to the river to see an old dam on the creek.

Then we made it back to the car.

Next, we drove to the town of Green Mountain Falls and parked at the lake.  We then hiked up a couple roads to the Thomas Trailhead and almost immediately came to Crystal Falls.

It was mostly frozen and pretty cool, but the lighting was terrible for pictures.

We then started hiking along Thomas Trail.  There were some really nice views of the little town from the trail.

The trail was only a mile, but an adventure in all the snow.

Near the end of the trail, we took a spur to Catamount Falls.

This one was mostly frozen too and the lighting had not improved.

We then had to cross Catamount Creek at a particularly icy spot, but managed not to fall.

We hiked a little ways on Catamount Trail and then turned back.  At the end of the trail was another small waterfall on Catamount Creek.

From here, we followed Belvedere Trail back to the parking area.

We were hungry by now, so stopped for a late lunch at Blue Moose Tavern before leaving.  We started making our way to the airport but made one more stop in Colorado Springs at Austin Bluffs Open Space for a hike to Pulpit Rock.

The trails weren't marked but it was easy to follow the path up towards the top.  There were nice views of Colorado Springs and Pikes Peak on the hike up.

It got very rocky as we got closer to the top and the rocks had eroded into some fantastic shapes.

The top of Pulpit Rock almost looked like a castle.

The rocks were very steep but there were obvious paths to get further and further up.

The views from up here were great.

Near the top, I spotted some very interesting looking mushroom rocks.

One seemed to be balanced precariously.

These mushroom rocks were as impressive as Pulpit Rock I thought.

We hung out at the top for a while and enjoyed the view.

As it got later in the evening, we made our way down.

Driving into Denver, we met Sandy's friend at Bull & Bush Brewery and then returned the rental car and headed to the airport for the red eye flight home.