AJ’s Outdoor Adventures: Hiking To Mt Falcon’s Castle Ruins

I had THIS trip planned with my 6-year-old for a few months now, we just had to wait for the snow to clear a bit. It was well worth the wait, everything we had hoped for and then some.

The Mt. Falcon trail is located in Morrison, and with Red Rocks Amphitheater visible in the distance for a portion of the hike, it's one that is not only pretty easy to find, but is a beautiful trek with a tremendous payoff at the summit.

Whether you park in the "west" lot or the "east" lot will determine how long your hike will be. I thought we were in the parking lot for the shorter hike but...I was wrong. There's about a 4-mile roundtrip difference. If you park in the "east" lot like I did, the hike will be about 8 miles long as opposed to a shorter 4.5-mile romp from the "west" lot.

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But it worked out great, as my little man made the trek up practically the entire way while we checked out some really cool scenery capped off by the main event: castle ruins that were over 100 years old at the summit. My son was looking for some knights, but unfortunately (or possibly fortunate for us), we didn't see any.

We DID see the awesome castle though, which was actually built and owned by a man named John Brisben Walker, who was a self-made millionaire by 1905. He bought over 1,000 acres of land and built this incredible home, but in 1916, tragedy struck when John's wife died and lightning struck the house, burning much of it.  The ruins up here are the only things left of the once-magnificent home and, rumor has it, are haunted.

We didn't experience any ghosts, but we DID experience some incredible views along the way on a magnificent day.