Sanitas is Latin for “health”. One of Boulder’s most popular urban trails, Sanitas is named for the Sanitarium that lies at its base. It was a quarry in the early twentieth century, owned by the University of Colorado. I’ve lived here over thirty years and today was the first time for me to hike it. Sort of like living in NYC and never visiting Ellis Island.

I started from the Hotel Boulderado, giving me a bit less than a mile walk along Mapleton Avenue to the trail head. Karen and I are spending the weekend downtown like tourists to celebrate our thirty-fifth anniversary. You can see the trail begins quite pedestrian. The top photo shows the length of the easy part running through Sanitas Valley. There’s a dirt, single track trail that mirrors it to the east along the Dakota Ridge.

Goat Trail, pictured above, intersects part way up and leads down to a neighborhood. It looks like a good run. I hiked rather than ran because I’m not in good enough shape just now to run this grade. I could maybe run the bottom portion, but the grade doubles if not triples in steepness closer to the top. Near the very top, you have to scramble and use your hands in places.

There were runners, of course. This is Boulder. I’d need to lose twenty pounds to run the full, three-plus mile loop. I got in over five miles including the stretch along Mapleton Ave. in a little under two hours. There’s a ton of sun exposure. I recommend letting the western sun dip below the ridge in the late afternoon if you hike this in the summer. Hard to believe that a small city lies at the base of all this, just over my shoulder.