Brian has been itching to ‘bike and hike’ for a while now – meaning, load up our gear and take our motorcycles to the trailhead. We tried this concept once before on both bikes, but I was tired after the hike and not comfortable on the drive home. This time, I rode two-up with him on our new-to-us BMW K1600GT, which worked great – he got his motorcycle fix, and I was able to relax and enjoy both the hike and ride.

This week presented the perfect opportunity to return to the Poudre Valley in Colorado, where we hiked Greyrock Mountain not long ago. We decided to check out the nearby Hewlett Gulch trail we had spotted on our previous hike.

This hike is considered an out-and-back because of the single trail back into the gulch, which then loops around an elevated area and back to the main entry trail. You can complete the loop in either direction but we opted to head left/west first and tackle the steeper section heading in to save my knees a bit on the descent.

The trail in included several river crossings with wide logs serving as bridges at each one. There was some water but the crossings were fairly dry this time of year. Brian had read they get pretty interesting in the spring following the mountain runoff.

The trail itself was mostly a dust/sand combo with occasional rocks. We were filthy by the end of the hike and thankful for our long pants and shirts and well as our buffs and hats that helped block both the trail debris as well as the sun.

This was by far one of our toastiest hikes in this area – I think the temperature only hit the mid 70s but at ~7,000 feet of elevation the sun was intense and brutal.

The surrounding mountains were really interesting and completely visible – some were fairly red while others were dark and grey. Along the riverbed we saw a number of trees that had just started morphing into their fall colors, but much of the trail was open grassland without any trees in sight. I was wishing for one when we got to the top of our climb – I could have used some shade!

We only passed a couple people during our hike. It seemed like most people simply did the out-and-back section to the loop versus the whole trail. The out-and-back section is about 5 miles, relatively flat, and follows the river so I can understand why that section is quite popular.

The most eventful part of the hike was the latter portion of the loop where we descended toward the river and returned to the main trail. The grass was really grown up along the trail, and we encountered two snakes – one really tiny grey one that had just crossed the trail, and a second larger one that didn’t seem in a big hurry to cross and head off into the long grass.

I always have to lead when we hike on the off-chance we encounter a snake because Brian absolutely hates them. Snakes don’t bother me as much, but I am a bit fearful of encountering a rattlesnake, which other hikers had reported seeing along this trail. Thankfully neither of the snakes we saw had rattles and both were well off the trail before Brian caught up to me so all was well!

Our hike clocked in at 9.25 miles roundtrip with 1,051 feet of gain. Brian had told me the hike was around 7 miles so this ended up being more of a training hike than I originally anticipated!

We decided to round out our trip with a quick stop at nearby Me Oh My Pie, which has been on our list. This cute coffee shop plus bakery has a fairly extensive list of breakfast and lunch items, but we opted for their namesake baked goods for our late lunch/afternoon snack.

My chocolate chip pecan pie was pretty good – I love pecan pie and could have done without the chocolate chips – while Brian’s blueberry pie was amazing. I think I’ll opt for one of their fruit pies next time we visit.

I’m really enjoying the Poudre Valley and look forward to hiking in this area again!