We’re still learning all of the places to hike near Cheyenne, and this weekend we had an opportunity to check out a new area just across the border in Colorado.

The Red Mountain Open Space is a 15,780-acre public area with 15-miles of trails for hiking, biking, and horse-back riding. We wound our way back its 10-mile entrance to the parking area at the trailhead, passing rolling red hills littered with boulders and spotted with the occasional pronghorn along the way.

We hadn’t done a ton of research prior to our hike so after hitting the facilities we spent a few moments studying the map at the trailhead and launching Gaia to track our route.

It was raining on our drive in and the sky was still looking ominous so we opted for a short afternoon loop that would allow us to quickly return to the car if the skies opened up.

Our loop comprised sections of four trails: Bent Rock, Ruby Wash, Big Hole Wash, and Sinking Sun. The first half of our hike ended up being our favorite – winding among the red hills, crossing the river in a couple of spots, and admiring the cacti clinging to the rock ledges alongside our path.

There were a few sun-bleached information plaques along the trail with information about the regional flora and fauna but they were hard to read and we didn’t want to dally given the clouds overhead.

We did spot several varieties of flowers along the trail – some with big white petals and others that were shades of purple and blue. I’ll have to do some research so I can better appreciate them the next time we hike here!

The second half of our hike took us into wide open grasslands along several big washes. It was a beautiful area and we could see for miles, even spotting the tips of the giant windmills north in Wyoming. However, it was a similar view for that entire portion of the hike, and we were missing the variety of geographic features from our earlier walk along the cliff faces.

As luck would have it, it started to rain shortly after we hopped in the car for our journey back to the entrance – we couldn’t have timed our hike any better!

According to Gaia, our loop was 3.77 miles with only 304 feet of gain, which was fine since we were hiking at 6,000 feet! All in all it took us just under 2 hours to complete.

There were tons of other trails and ways to stitch together other loop options so I know we’ll be back to check out some of the farther-flung spots and more challenging trails. Grateful to have this open space nearby!