Iron Dike from Magnolia Drive to Boulder Canyon, 05/09/2009
Black Tiger Gulch with Iron Dike in foreground, 05/09/09
On this hike, our goal was to map the Iron Dike along a stretch we hadn't done before, from near Magnolia to Boulder Canyon.
You can see the GPS tracks for this entire hike.
From Boulder, we drove up Canyon Boulevard about 4 miles, then turned left onto the steep and winding Magnolia Drive for 2.6 miles, and parked on the side of the road at an elevation of 7,439 feet.
At this point, Magnolia Drive intersects the Iron Dike, and you can see its distinctive rocks on the roadside. It's very prominent here as we hiked northeast traversing the Dike, then northwest following it.
As we descended and followed it through very rugged terrain, we occasionally lost track of it in thick forest, but managed to roughly track it until just above Boulder Creek. Private property near the creek prevented us from following it to the creek's edge. On the descent, we also occassionally got a good view of the Iron Dike on the opposite side of Boulder Canyon as it ascends parallel to, and almost on top of Black Panther Gulch.
For the return, we began following a trail up the ridge, then realizing it was diverging too far from our start, we crossed over to the next ridge, and found another trail, which eventually became a dirt road, back to Magnolia Drive, and then hiked east along the road to our parking place.
We started our hike at 10:19, and finished at 15:08, for a total time of 4 hours, 49 minutes. The GPS odometer showed 6.52 miles at the end. The elevation difference from lowest to highest was 1,488 feet.
- Richard Hollos and Stefan Hollos
| Place name | Elev [ft] | Accuracy [ft] | Lat/Lon |
|---|---|---|---|
| Inter of Iron Dike and Magnolia Dr | 7439 | 14 | 39.98885,-105.37160 |
| Overlook on Iron Dike | 7498 | 12 | 39.99043,-105.37112 |
| Iron Dike just before plunge | 7300 | 7 | 39.99257,-105.37229 |
| Point on Iron Dike | 7159 | 21 | 39.99291,-105.37356 |
| Point on Iron Dike | 6869 | 18 | 39.99413,-105.37559 |
| Point on Iron Dike | 6990 | 12 | 39.99548,-105.37611 |
| Point on Iron Dike | 6823 | 23 | 39.99897,-105.37850 |
| Point on Iron Dike (near Boulder Cnyon Rd) | 6675 | 10 | 40.00120,-105.38019 |
| High point of hike | 8163 | 10 | 39.98568,-105.39203 |