Hiking – One way hike up Cougar Ridge Trail from Minturn to Lionshead Rock and top of Vail Gondola. Then ride down Vail gondola (no pass and no fee to ride down). Well-behaved leashed dogs ok.

Well-behaved dogs on leashes are welcome.  The Vail gondola is free and dogs are allowed (no pass required) for descending (but not for ascending).  

The hiking portion of this trip should take about 6 hours with 3.1kft gain. The early start is needed to ensure we can get parking at the trailhead and be down off the mountain early enough.  At 11,000 feet we won't be above treeline and we'll be descending quickly on the gondola so it should be fairly safe that our hiking will end near 1:15pm.

If the weather starts looking iffy we can turn around at Lionshead Rock to descend back to Minturn (that would be 7 miles and 2.1Kft gained.

Please do not sign up for this hike if you are not prepared to complete this hike in 6 hours.  

Meet at 6:30am at the paved Kayak parking lot at the I70 Frisco exit 201.   We will carpool to the free Vail Lionshead parking garage.  Those coming from the other side of Vail pass can meet us at the Lionshead garage at 7am.  We will leave at least one car in the Lionshead garage and ride in the other cars to the trailhead in Minturn off Taylor St (15min away).    We will hike Cougar Ridge to Lionshead and over the top to the Vail gondola and take the gondola down.  At the Vail garage we'll send the drivers back to retrieve their cars in Minturn.