I spent my Sunday hiking. I hike up St. Vrain in the rain. St. Vrain Mountain is on a ridge that makes up the southern boundary of Rocky Mountain National Park. To the south is the Indian Peaks Wilderness, in fact much of the trail goes through this wilderness area. To the north is the Wild Basin and the Longs Peak massive. Rich and started out at the 8,940' trailhead on a cloudy day and hiked 3 miles west up to a 11,220' saddle between Meadow Mountain (11,632'), which I hiked in the snow back in October, and St. Vrain. Much of this part of the trail is below treeline, however just short of the saddle we broke out of the trees. From here we headed along the trail towards the southwest, where we reentered a forest of stunted evergreens. However these trees didn't last long, at which point we turned off of the trail and headed up the gentle eastern slopes of St. Vrain (12,162'). Before reaching the summit it started to rain, and rain pretty hard. There wasn't much wind and the temperatures were somewhat cool. The view from the summit was rather limited due to the clouds, but earlier we could make out a cloud shrouded Longs Peak and the beautiful valley of Wild Basin to the north, the Eastern Plains to the east and the rugged mountains of the Indian Peaks to the south. While the clouds did obscure some of the more distant views, the clouds added a certain beauty to the scenery. We didn't spend much time on the summit because there wasn't any protection from the rain and we were worried that the rocks would become slick from the rain. On the way up we just headed up the slope without benefit of any trail, but on the way down we found a very faint trail that avoided most of the rocks. After returning to the main trail we headed back to the saddle and then down into the trees and back to the trailhead. After we had been in the trees for a little while we heard a couple rumbles of distant thunder, and shortly before we got back to the trailhead the rain stopped and the clouds parted which allowed the sun to shine for the first time. The total distance of this hike was between 9 and 9.5 miles. I wasn't sure how well my toe would handle the hike, but for the most part it didn't bother we too much. There were a few times when I stepped wrong that sent a sharp report of pain through my toe. And after the hike it was more sore than it had been in the last few days, but this morning it feels pretty good.