My cousin and I had plans to hike to several places this summer. But since the weather god decided to bless Colorado—a state in the United States where we both are studying—with summer like weather in an otherwise cold February, we decided that we wouldn’t have to wait until the summer to hike.

So, on Sunday, we went up to Golden, a small town in Colorado, ready to climb the Tabletop Mountains. The North and South Tabletop Mountains are located on the eastern flank of the Front Range of the Rocky Mountains—the American Himalayas, if you must. The elevation is 6,332 ft on the south side and 6,565 ft on the north side. The mountains are named ‘Tabletop’ because of the nearly flattened top caused by the ancient lava flows.

We started at the south side first. The main attraction of the South Tabletop is a huge rock that sits on the edge of the mountain. It took us about 40 minutes to reach the top. And the view from there was fantastic. We could see the whole town of Golden and we could catch the silhouette of Denver’s skyline as well.

As the name suggests, the mountain has a flat table-like plateau at the top. We walked around for a bit and decided we wanted to climb the north side on the same day as well. So, we started descending through a rough path with bare shrubs on both our sides. Now don’t be mistaken, it might be 60 degrees during winter in Colorado but that doesn’t mean the trees are going to turn green.

Then our journey for the north side started. The North Tabletop seemed shorter than the South one, but it was mighty steep. And though we both considered ourselves fit enough for the hike, we were being outpaced by kids in jeans. Kids in jeans! So, we amped up our speed and at last we reached at the top (successfully defeating the toddlers!)

I didn’t think the view from the north side would be that different, but it was breathtaking and in every way unique and different from the south. The moment we started gazing out into the horizon, I turned to my cousin and said, “You don’t expect to see this in real life, you know. It seems like a desktop screensaver.” But the view was real. On one side was the city and on the other was a never-ending landscape of mountains colliding, with their bases touching and forming plain yellow fields.

The North Tabletop had more to it than just the view of the valley below. The mountain itself had two huge vacant holes. The first hole had a wall of stones that traced the edge of the mountain itself and there was some rubble at its bottom. The wall of stones was interesting. We tried to cross it. I was too scared of dying, but my cousin went ahead and tried it anyway. He went half way but had to retreat because some of the rocks there were missing.

The other deep vacant hole was in the middle of the North Tabletop. It seemed like the bottom of a lake that had dried up. I could imagine water flowing down the layers of the stair-like bottom.

As much as we hoped to run into some mountain lions while we were up there, we didn’t. But we did see some deer up there. Another amusing sight was the many number of bikers climbing uphill dragging their bikes behind them. The fun part for them was racing downwards from the top at full speed.

After enjoying the wonderful view, we started climbing down and it was harder than we expected because of the extremely steep angle of the hill. There were bikers zooming past us in their bikes and we wondered that ride down must’ve made the climb up worth it.

After conquering both the South and North Tabletop Mountains we decided to call it a day and drove back home.

As my post-hike sore body tries to explain to you how beautiful it was hiking up to the Tabletop, it wouldn’t be the same as being there and experiencing it. To everyone reading, I hope you can make serendipitous hikes as well, wherever you are and whatever mountains lie before you.

Shrestha is a freshman at Community College of Denver