After climbing West Spanish Peak earlier today, I drove out back to Walsenburg and up into Pueblo County where I hoped to also hike Greenhorn Mountain while the weather held up. Greenhorn Mountain's summit is 12,347 feet, but a forest road gets to about 11,400 feet, leaving a fairly short hike above treeline to the summit. I left Interstate-25 in Colorado City and took state route CO-165 west into the mountains for about 24 miles to the Forest Road 360 junction. From here it was another 22 curvy mountain miles to the trailhead. The road is mostly pretty good but it had long sections of washboard. I followed the directions in Mitchler & Covill's Hiking Colorado's Summits to get to my objective, and the directions were accurate.

I arrived at the trailhead around 2 p.m. in cloudy weather. Surprisingly there was one other vehicle there. I got my stuff together and started in. A good trail switchbacks up the side of the main summit ridge and put me at about 11,800 feet. From here it was a matter of hiking up and down three big false summits and a couple of minor ones. Also, my map blew away! Fortunately I could see the summit and didn't miss the map, although I felt bad about littering.

Truthfully, tired after West Spanish Peak, I wasn't too thrilled about these false summits, each having about 200 feet of drop and gain, sometimes steeply. I arrived to the real summit about 3 p.m. and stopped for a quick break, snapped a photo and visited with the ladybugs. I was kind of concerned about the cloud buildup. Although not very heavy, they were puffy and localized on the summit, so a quick lightning bolt was not out of the question. I signed into the register and started down.

Coming back to the next main hump on the ridge I saw a good trail that contoured around to the east side and saved me the hassle of climbing up and down that extra elevation. Any little bit helps! Finally, at the saddle below the final hump back to the main trail, I decided to just go my own way cross-country down the talus fields to the west. After a short ways, I came to a trail that led down the 300 feet or so to the base of the talus. This trail is not visible from below and I'm sure is the work of others who had the same desire not to regain that annoying extra elevation to get out. From the base of the talus I made my own way down the grassy scrub slopes to an old road, which I followed about a mile out back to my truck. Total time gone was about two hours and about 1,300 gross feet of gain covering five miles of hiking.

I relaxed at my truck, the other people having left already. I eventually got on the road and back to Colorado City and Interstate-25, where I headed up to the city of Pueblo. While driving, a passing motorist flagged me and shouted "flat!"... my right rear had a slow leak and had lost about half its air. I didn't notice any handling problems, but I am happy they pointed it out to me. Well, I had to exit and change my tire. This is the third trip in a row where I've had to change a tire. I stayed in Pueblo that night at a Motel-6, and got the flat patched the next morning at a local Big-O.