Sugarloaf Mountain.

better viewing: click on the image to make it bigger.

The mountain backdrop for Boulder, Colorado: Bear Mountain, Green Mountain and the Flatirons at the left in this panorama, and Sugarloaf Mountain at right, in clear relief against a cloud cover over the Indian Peaks. The image was made in October 2009 from Legion Park, east of the city of Boulder, Colorado along State Highway 7.

Using Sugarloaf as a marker, you can see where the Switzerland Trail is relative to Boulder.

Though upstaged by the more dramatic features of its neighbors, Sugarloaf is a looming presence in the city of Boulder.

Here is Arapahoe Avenue (State Highway 7) looking west from Foothills Parkway (State Highway 157). The snowstorm covering the Indian Peaks provides an uncluttered background for viewing Sugarloaf.

In an image made the following day, here is Sugarloaf against the Arapahoe Glacier, freshly replenished with snow, next year's drinking water for Boulder's citizens.

In early September I rode the Switzerland Trail by mountainbike, from the Peak to Peak Highway (State Highway 72) down to my office in Boulder. Riding due east, here was my first glimpse of Sugarloaf Mountain along the Trail, the view that passengers on the narrow-gauge would have seen in 1889.

A few weeks later I did a trail run along the same section of the Trail and finished with a hike to the top of the peak.