A Great Walk Not Yet Taken

   A friend (more of an acquaintance, actually) of mine asked me a few days ago if I would be interested in walking from Lakewood to Fort Collins with him.

    A little backstory here; this is a person I met a couple months ago while I was walking around the Main Reservoir Park, a place near my home with a tree lined, short (one mile) trail that circles the small reservoir and has a beautiful view at both sunrise and sunset, so accommodates both morning and evening schedules.

   Most days I'm on that trail in the late evening, which is also when he takes his walk (with his two dogs, rescued mutts named Katy & Davy). We walk two or three laps while engaging in conversation about art, literature and baseball (mostly).

   We also talk about other great walks we have taken in and around the Lakewood area - if Lakewood has a feature worth talking up it's all the great public walking trails. 

   To clarify, we are talking about walking, not hiking tails - Lakewood has a great many hiking trails, too, but walking and hiking are two different types of trails - walking trails are generally short (1 to 100 miles, +/_), level, improved surfaces (concrete, asphalt, brick, or hard packed dirt) that are not very challenging - one literally just walks at a comfortable pace enjoying the view and chit-chatting for a few hours, while hiking trails are dirt trails that might require moderate to strenuous effort to get over or around obstacles, can go up (and down) hills or mountains and can take a few hours or a few months.

   Walking to Fort Collins from Lakewood is possible - Wadsworth Avenue (Colorado State route 121) runs through Lakewood to Broomfield where it marries up to a section of Colorado State route 287 that runs all the way to Fort Collins, and the entire way has either concrete sidewalks or is paralleled by other types of improved trails - for about 60 miles due north.

   60 miles is a lot of walking, and at my walking speed (3 miles an hour, give or take) would require at least 20 hours, one way. That's a long time to be walking, would definitely require an overnight stay (or two).

   I have been mulling over his request in the few days since he asked and I've gone from "no way in hell" to "that might be pretty cool to do". I'm not saying I'm going to do it, but I am considering it.

   Seriously. I'd just have to figure out how to squeeze that much time out of my schedule, and maybe get a few longer day walks in, such as the Clear Creek Trail from Youngfield to Harlan and back - that's good walk right there, 10 plus miles at least.