Arapahoe County Fairgrounds Park is also a trail and play space

The arenas, barns, and event parking are what the Arapahoe County Fairgrounds is known for. Wrapped around that busy core, though, is a quieter park most visitors never notice: a trailhead, two natural-surface trails, a nature play area, an intermittent small creek, multi-use fields, and a large central picnic pavilion. You can walk a trail or let kids climb on the nature play area on a day when nothing is scheduled in the arena.

The event side has not gone anywhere. The Fairgrounds and Event Center sits on the same property, with a covered arena, a rodeo arena, and a 50,000-square-foot event center. So the site does double duty: a public-event campus when the county gathers, and an open outdoor edge for the eastern Front Range the rest of the time.

This is a useful corrective to the idea that Colorado open space has to mean a mountain trailhead an hour from home. Here it is a field, a creek, a footpath, and a covered pavilion, all stitched around the building where the county holds its fair. For a family on the east side, that is the green space within easy reach, no drive into the foothills required. The county’s Fairgrounds Park page keeps the current list of amenities and event-facility details if you want to check before you go.