Rabbit Mountain marks the foothills reaching out onto the plains

Rabbit Mountain is a good place to watch Boulder County change shape underfoot.

Ron Stewart Preserve sits at the easternmost point of the county’s foothills, the last rise of rock before the land flattens out. That edge position is the whole character of the place. The preserve carries a long stretch of human history along with its geologic features, its plants, and its wildlife, all packed into the seam where two very different landscapes meet.

The feel here is nothing like the mountain parks west of Boulder. This is where the foothills seem to step out toward the plains rather than climb away from them. The trails are not just exercise loops; they trace a line between grassland, bare rock, and the lower-elevation habitat that animals use as they move between the two. Walk far enough and the views open east across miles of open country instead of closing in on a canyon wall.

For anyone who knows Boulder County mainly through the Flatirons, a visit out here widens the picture. The county’s landscape does not end at dramatic walls of red rock above the city. It keeps going, easing eastward in softer ridges and long horizons until the mountains finally let the prairie take over. Rabbit Mountain is the spot where you can stand on one and look out at the other.