Horsethief Trail to Cascade Mountain

Tanya and I were able to get away for an overdue vacation in early August. We headed out to Durango, Ouray, Marble and Glenwood Springs. These areas are some of the most beautiful parts of Colorado and we thoroughly enjoyed our time away. To be fair, there are a ton of amazing spots here in Colorado but I’ll say that this trip was one of the prettiest. Maybe my viewpoint is somewhat biased because Tanya was with me. While in Ouray, we did a hike up to the top of Cascade Mountain off Horsethief Trail, a 12,103′ peak.

The Cascade Mountain I’m referring to is located at GPS coordinates 38.038224, -107.641487. For some reason, there is also a Cascade Mountain at GPS coordinates 40.34111, -105.95944 described on Summit Post. If you do a search for the mountain name, you’ll probably find that one and not the one we climbed.

Little background on our trip

Durango

Tanya and I had a week to ourselves to head out exploring Colorado. We chose Durango as our first stop so we could visit friends there. While I’d driven through the area, I’d never stopped and Tanya hadn’t been there. We enjoyed staying a few nights at a room we found on AirBNB. The hike on Animas Mountain was perfect, and we enjoyed a few restaurants in the area. Happy Pappy’s was a great meal at a reasonable price!

Ouray

Ouray was our next stop. The hotel we stayed at was the Main Street Inn. Our room was the Outlaw Room which has a second-floor balcony overlooking main street. It was a treat sitting on the patio during a few monsoon showers and for breakfast. The bathroom door, however, was basically broken, not ideal. The inn is a very old building with lots of “character”. Be prepared if you decide to stay there.

Besides the Horsethief Trail and Cascade Mountain, we hiked to a scenic overlook which branches off the Chief Ouray Mine trail. The views from that scenic overlook were very pretty. Tanya wanted to stay and enjoy it while her antsy boyfriend had troubles sitting still. Someday I’ll learn to be better about taking it easy. Tanya, please keep reminding me! 🙂

Marble

Ouray was so pretty that we were sad to leave it. We drove up 550 to 133 and then 3 to head into Marble. Marble is still a small, relatively quiet town although it gets a growing share of tourist traffic headed into Maroon Bells (see my hike). Beaver Lake provided a nice resting spot. Tanya read while I fished. There were lots of trout rising on the lake and I only caught one. At least I didn’t get skunked!

Glenwood Springs

Leaving Marble, we headed up through Redstone (beautiful!) and on to Glenwood Springs. We checked into our hotel, the Hanging Lake Inn. The hotel was really clean, reasonably priced, and the staff was very friendly. Another shout-out to a great restaurant, the Slope and Hatch (no longer open). Their tacos were soooo tasty. That part of town is loaded with restaurants with open seating, along with public seating area under the main street road. We’re now thinking about making a few regular trips out here, and we’ll be getting tacos when we go!

Back to hiking Horsethief Trail to Cascade Mountain

OK, back to the hiking! There are two stopping points to the trailhead for Horsethief Trail. One is just before Dexter Creek. The real trailhead is about 1.3 miles past this point, however, and you can get there if you cross the stream. Otherwise, you add a few miles to your hike along the 4×4 road. When we approached the creek, there were a lot of washouts from strong rains over the past month. Luckily the Jeep was a high-clearance vehicle so we forded the stream. You can see how bumpy the road was from some video Tanya took. Both videos were on the return trip after the hike. There were only two vehicles at the real trailhead, our Jeep and a 4Runner.

Horsethief Trail – Forested lower portion

The trail starts in a very pretty forest mix of pine and aspen. We saw lots of fungi in this section, more than I’ve seen in a while. It is most likely due to the many monsoon showers the area had experienced over the previous few weeks. Everything was lush and green, making this section of the hike especially pretty.

After about 1.5 miles, the trail opens up to an overlook where Horsethief Trail continues up to the left. There is a trail called the Old Horsethief Trail that merges with the main trail here. The main trail, Horsethief Trail, is used to get to the Bridge to Heaven overlook which we weren’t aware of before the hike. We thought we might make it to that area if things worked out OK, although the day was cloudy and rainy so we were not sure how the weather would treat us later in the day.

Horsethief Trail – Middle section

Once you get past the overlook, the trail follows a ridge line for the rest of the way up. Both sides of the ridge are somewhat steep dropoffs as you can see from this picture of Tanya on our way down.

The trail has areas that are exposed, and areas that are in forests. The trail is, by itself, a gorgeous hike.

Cascade Mountain

As you approach 4 miles, the trail starts the climb up to a pass. You go through 11,900′ to 12,000′ during this transition and come to branch in the trail. Going straight takes you to a spot where you can head out to Cascade Mountain. Going left continues up the pass and over towards Bridge to Heaven. We found out the branch to Cascade Mountain also is a shortcut to the main trail, although that’s not recommended, so stick to the main path if you’re headed to Bridge to Heaven.

We went straight and reached a point to take a little used trail through the tundra to Cascade Mountain. We’d taken a short break just before this and discussed whether we wanted to continue to Bridge to Heaven. The weather was pretty iffy, so we decided to call it after Cascade Mountain. Monsoon rains had been very active lately and we didn’t want to get caught in something nasty.

Here are the views from Cascade Mountain, simply stunning.

The hike back from Cascade Mountain

The temps at 12,000′ had dropped substantially and we were ready to head back down. Shortly after navigating down from the pass, we had a little rain and then some pea-sized hail. It wasn’t anything too bad, although it reminded us that we made the right call to turn around.

The rest of the trip down was uneventful. Once back at the trailhead, a couple came off the trail. We’d last seen them at 12,000′ on their way to the Bridge of Heaven. They, too, had decided the weather was too sketchy to continue on and had turned back. It was good everyone was safe!

Summary

The Horsethief Trail is a very pretty hike and was especially nice for me since Tanya was along. I’d strongly recommend it if you’re in Ouray, even if you only take it 1.5 miles to the first overlook. Make sure you have a high-clearance vehicle if you want to cross the stream!

GPX Map of Horsethief Trail to Cascade Mountain