Sentinel Point is a fairly unknown mountain on the west side of Pikes Peak. One can access the mountain by driving to Divide on Highway 24 and heading South on Highway 67 just past the old tunnel. The "Horsethief Park" trailhead, which provides access to both Sentinel Point and Pancake Rocks can be found roughly halfway between Divide and Cripple Creek. Having just purchased new snowshoes, my friend Ethan decided that he wanted to test them out. We departed Colorado Springs around 6:30 AM and began hiking around 7:45 AM. The trail begins fairly easy and we did not put on our snowshoes until we crossed the creek onto trail 704C to head North into Horsethief Park. 
After crossing the stream, the trail brought us right up into Horsethief Park and provided us with some great views of some frozen over beaver ponds.
The views of Sentinel Point were great all day, and as we ventured up into Horsethief Park, the mountain seemed to keep an eye on our progress, measuring our worthiness.
Sentinel Point was very close! 
Once in Horsethief Park, the trail splits and we stayed to the right and began bushwhacking up the steep slope of Sentinel Point.
In retrospect, it would have been prudent to stay to the North side of the mountain; however, the very steep and powdery west slope of Sentinal proved to be a great test for our snowshoes and our endurance! Once at tree-line, the terrain leveled out and we were able to make our way to the ridge-line and up to Sentinal Point proper. The views on this hike were outstanding, including some very uncommon viewpoints of Pikes Peak and Almagre Mountain. 
I highly recommend this as a quick day-hike all year round. 
comments
I had a great hike the day I went. The trickiest part of the route I took was re-connecting with the trail at treeline when coming back down. I was told ahead of time that it is notoriously hard to find and easy to go down the wrong gully. In spite of diligent efforts to prevent it, that's what happened to me also. But with topo and compass, I bushwacked off-trail a few miles and actually got back to my car in less time than it took to go up. Since then, I now have a hiking GPS to supplement and help avoid that problem.
Anyway as you said, Sentinel makes for a great day hike all year round and it was certainly a memorable little adventure for me as well.
Happy Climbing!
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