Stats, trail tips and important information regarding this trail are located at the bottom of the blog post. Unless explicitly noted, all pictures in this blog are owned by me and should otherwise not be used without expressed written consent.
As you may assume, I travel… a lot. It’s something I treasure. The greatest benefits of traveling are a couple of vague concepts – exploration and discovery. These two concepts are part of the reason why my hiking bucket list is fungible and ever-changing.
The great advantage of exploring is finding places that really ignite your soul. I’ve visited many, many towns and cities considered “boujee and beautiful”. Telluride definitely does the trick for me. It’s breathtakingly beautiful, nearly surrounded by a box canyon and is one of the most unique landscapes in the country. There are a smorgasbord of hikes near Telluride including in the nearby Lizard Head Wilderness.
This is a hike I completed in July 2019 right as I was getting my bucket list “off the ground”. We camped at the nearby Matterhorn Campground (which I HIGHLY recommend) and was looking for a beautiful but challenging nearby hike (not hard to do lol). From my recollection, this hike was mentioned to us as a great option.
The trailhead to this hike is not far from Highway 145. You can even search “Cross Mountain Trailhead” on Google Maps to find it. The parking lot is pretty small but this hike doesn’t seem to be a go-to destination.
As a forewarning, I’m in nearly every picture from the Cross Mountain hike. So if this blog post comes off as vain, I do apologize! This is me at the trailhead not far from the highway…
I still have (and love) that hoodie. 😎
You get a tiny glimpse of Lizard Head Peak from this picture.
The hike is absolutely beautiful but I would call it more of a destination hike. The hike to the top is full of alpine forest, gradual elevation and some gentle flowery meadows. It’s peaceful. This is me on the trail as the snow began to show up…
Then as the snow really began to show up!…
We didn’t have spikes so it was a nice workout and we had to be careful. Thankfully there was little post-holing since the July snow was relatively packed down.
I decided to pose for a picture here and it turned out pretty good!…
And as you’ll notice, the picture quality isn’t great given that I was using an older iPhone and was just about to move to my first Google Pixel. Still, I was able to snag one of my favorite iconic hiking photos as we ascended up towards the end of the trail…
Towards the end the trail gets steeper and there is some rock scree you’ll need to deal with. It’s doable, though!
Looks pretty daunting huh? It was a great workout, though…
The Lizard Head is getting closer and closer…
And bam… we were at the end of the trail….
The end of the trail was absolutely breathtaking – surrounded by wildflowers, mountain peaks and nearby alpine forest. This is where I captured one of my favorite nature photos of all time…
This looks fake, doesn’t it? I tilted my phone towards the ground right behind a patch of wildflowers and it worked out perfectly. Want to know one of my nature photography secrets? It’s layers! You see merely a foreground and background here but the difference (color, texture) is stark. You’ll see me make use of a foreground of wildflowers often but rarely does it make for such a stark contrast.
As we started to hike back down, I learned for the first time what altitude sickness was. Living in Southern states my entire life, I was not acclimated to 13,000 feet despite being in Colorado elevation for five days. I was feeling nauseous with a splitting headache. I found an oxygen bar at the edge of town in Telluride. It helped quite a bit but it took a full night’s rest (in Mountain Village) for me to be back to normal. But it was all worth it in the end! I would definitely recommend Cross Mountain as a gorgeous hike. Check out Telluride and Matterhorn Campground while you’re there. If you have a capable off-road vehicle, check out Black Bear or Ophir Pass for some serious adventure.
Total Distance/Time: (estimated at 3 hrs but before I began tracking this data)
Calories Burned: 1,250 (Apple Watch)
Trail Type: Out-and-back
Trail Features: Alpine forest, mountain views, creek, snow, wildflower meadows
Best Time to Hike: July-August
Difficulty Rating: 8/10
Trailhead Coordinates: 37.7964137, -107.9369234
Trail Tips:
- Time of Year: If you’re wanting to hike this trail without snowshoes or spikes, you’ll probably have a solid three-month window to go so – July through September.
- Parking: The parking lot is small and may get busy during prime hiking months. But I suspect it isn’t full often.
- Camping: If you’re looking to go the more economical route (and also the most adventurous), Matterhorn Campground is in between this hike and Telluride. Your other options are mostly in Telluride and can get quite pricey depending on the year. Matterhorn is mostly first come-first serve so I’d recommend getting there relatively early (before lunch). There are roughly six campsites right next to the river and they’re as good as gold! Such a relaxing spot to camp.