Horsetooth Rock, in Horsetooth Mountain Open Space, is the most noteable land feature in the Fort Collins, Colorado, area. While I put this page together a couple years ago, during our local winter/spring hikes of 2004 or 2005, I never finished linking it to the site until now.

This picture of the Horsetooth was taken from the road along the east side of Horsetooth Reservior, with a zoom lens and a tripod to minmize any movement bluring.

From the Horsetooth Mountain Park trailhead, the Horsetooth Rock hike is about 6 miles round trip, taking roughly 3 hours; however, the stiff 1,700 feet of elevation gain is probably what you'll remember most. The shot below was taken on a late afternoon hike coming up on the Wathen Trail (use the Horsetooth Mountain Park link above to find the park map with trail info).

From the top of Horsetooth Rock, on the north side of the tooth, this is the view looking east out over Horsetooth Reservior and Fort Collins.

Coming down from Horsetooth Rock back towards the trailhead, I managed to hide all the rural buildup outside the park in this shot of the long ridge running out from the south end of Horsetooth Reservior. In the distance, Boyd Lake is visble to the left, with Lake Loveland on the right.

This next shot, again with the zoom, was one Suzy pointed out to me on a hike up the Spring Creek Trail. Looking northwest from the service road in the northwest corner of the park, we could see Greyrock - a popular hiking destination with its trailhead in the Poudre Canyon. While Greyrock has a number of documented technical climbs, the long uphill approach with a full pack keeps the popularity low.

It was Sunday morning on October 30th, 2016, when I started an early hike up to Horsetooth Rock - one of many trips over the years. I arrived at the trailhead at 6:48 AM just as it was almost light enough to see without a headlamp. There were clouds moving around with a light mist at times, and while I had the camera with me, I wasn't expecting any real photo opportunities. Only about 12 minutes up the trail though, I started taking pictures of the fog and clouds rolling in and around the mountains. I selected these six for an update to this webpage. Click the thumbnails to see these cool shots.

Fog and clouds rolling around Horsetooth Mountain Park at 7:12 AM View from the Wathen trail looking east at the low clouds over Fort Collins at 7:58 AM View looking south along the foothills from the summit of Horsetooth Rock at 7:48 AM Low clouds over the foothills as seen from the summit of Horsetooth Rock Low clouds and fog drifting around the foothills at Horsetooth Mountain Park View looking east at the clouds over Fort Collins from Horsetooth Rock at 7:51 AM