Yesterday I took a drive out to the Cheesman Reservoir near Deckers, Colorado, I hiked the Upper Cheesman Canyon Trail, which took me through a landscape that was devastated by a forest fire in the summer of 2002.
The Hayman fire, which scorched 138,114 acres, was the largest forest fire in the history of Colorado until 2020 when the Pine Gulch fire broke its 18-year record. Sadly, I would not be surprised if that record is broken yet again in the next few years, if not sooner than later.
The Hayman fire has certainly left its lasting mark on the rolling hills surrounding Cheesman Reservoir, or Cheesman Lake as it is referred to by some. Not by me, though. I can’t bring myself to call a reservoir a lake. I just can’t do it.
Anyway, the hike is made a little more interesting by the fact that it brings one through a landscape that was burned out two decades ago but is starting to grow back. What would normally be a lush coniferous forest on the Pike’s Peak batholith instead resembles the kind of high-desert terrain you’d be more likely to find to the area’s southwest near Salida and Buena Vista.
The Upper Cheesman Canyon trail is a roughly five-mile round-trip hike with a little under 1000 total feet of elevation gain. I went on a Thursday and saw only one other hiker with her cute dog. It was definitely a peaceful way to spent a few hours out of the Denver metro without driving terribly far.
I was lucky enough to spot some blooming cacti as I hiked and I took a few pictures along the way. You can check out some of those pics out below.
