Colorado Porch

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Outdoors and wildfire

Hunting and fishing rules, trails, rivers, camping, winter sports, dark skies, and wildfire risk and defensible space — the public-land side of Colorado life.

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Local notes

More outdoors and wildfire notes

451 sourced notes in this topic

Outdoors and wildfire

Silverton Mountain: One old chairlift, no easy way down

A single old double chairlift north of Silverton serves nothing but ungroomed expert terrain, where everyone carries an avalanche beacon, shovel, and probe.

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Outdoors and wildfire

Ski Cooper keeps it small, natural, and easy on the wallet

Atop Tennessee Pass north of Leadville, Ski Cooper runs on natural snowfall with short lift lines and ticket prices well below Colorado's big resorts.

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Outdoors and wildfire

The Crags Trail: Teller County's granite window onto Pikes Peak

A short, family-friendly hike from Crags Campground near Divide threads granite spires below Pikes Peak, and the same trailhead launches the strenuous back route toward the summit.

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Outdoors and wildfire

The land around the Royal Gorge Bridge is a city park, not a private resort

Royal Gorge Park west of Cañon City is owned by the City of Cañon City as a large mountain park, with the famous bridge run as one attraction inside it.

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Outdoors and wildfire

The Maroon Bells are beautiful to photograph and dangerous to climb

Maroon Peak and North Maroon Peak are two fourteeners above the famous lake view, and the Forest Service warns that climbing them is hazardous because of the loose, crumbly rock.

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Outdoors and wildfire

The Pawnee Buttes Trail has a spring closure for nesting raptors

The Pawnee Buttes Trail in northeast Weld County is open year-round, but parts near the bluffs close each spring to protect nesting hawks, eagles, and falcons.

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Outdoors and wildfire

The Poudre is a National Heritage Area you can raft through

The Cache la Poudre corridor above Fort Collins is a 45-mile national heritage area honoring Western water law, and summer snowmelt turns the same canyon into the Front Range's go-to whitewater run.

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Outdoors and wildfire

The Red Shin Trail loops the quiet side of John Martin Reservoir

The Red Shin Trail at John Martin Reservoir State Park is a named loop below the dam and around Lake Hasty that ties together prairie, wetland, and a Santa Fe Trail marker.

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Outdoors and wildfire

The Rocky Mountain Arsenal is a national wildlife refuge with a cleanup history

An urban national wildlife refuge in Commerce City sits on former Army and industrial land that went through a major federal cleanup before opening to the public.

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Outdoors and wildfire

The Sangre de Cristo Wilderness is close to Costilla County, not in it

The Sangre de Cristo Wilderness lies just beyond Costilla County's northwest corner, and its special camping and campfire rules apply on the national forest side of the range — while much of Costilla's own high country is private land.

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Outdoors and wildfire

Trail of the Mourning Dove follows a dry creek through Crow Valley

A short Crow Valley walk along normally dry Crow Creek, where brushy lowland gathers birds best in the cool of early morning or evening.

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Outdoors and wildfire

Tsistsistas-Hinono'ei Park has a council ring and shaded paths

Tsistsistas-Hinono'ei Park, also called Cheyenne-Arapaho Park, pairs a quiet neighborhood green with a tribute sculpture and council ring.

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Outdoors and wildfire

Walden Ponds turned gravel pits into a wildlife stop

Walden Ponds Wildlife Habitat opened in 1975, turning worked-out gravel pits into Boulder County wetlands, trails, and bird habitat.

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Outdoors and wildfire

Washington Park is Denver's outdoor living room

Wash Park pairs two hand-launch boating lakes, Denver's biggest formal flower beds, and a loop path that the neighborhood treats like a shared backyard.

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Outdoors and wildfire

Why the Great Sand Dunes are a dark-sky place

Great Sand Dunes National Park and Preserve is a certified International Dark Sky Park, and its dry, high, low-light setting makes it one of the easier places in Colorado to see a star-filled sky.

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Outdoors and wildfire

Wildfire has shaped much of the land at Mesa Verde

Large lightning-driven wildfires have burned much of Mesa Verde National Park over the years, which is why this dry pinyon-juniper country is a real fire landscape, not a tame one.

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Outdoors and wildfire

Winter backcountry near Silverton means checking the CAIC avalanche forecast

The mountains around Silverton sit in the North San Juan avalanche zone, where the state avalanche center posts daily winter forecasts and backcountry travelers carry rescue gear.

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Outdoors and wildfire

Adams County signs its trails like a connected system

Color-coded signs and mile markers tie Adams County's trails into one readable network instead of scattered, unconnected paths.

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Outdoors and wildfire

Broomfield County Commons is the city's central prairie open space

Broomfield County Commons Open Space is a flat prairie loop in the middle of the city with reservoir overlooks and Front Range views.

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Outdoors and wildfire

Carrizo Canyon is a creek-fed canyon with old rock carvings

Carrizo Canyon in the Comanche National Grassland follows a fork of Carrizo Creek through juniper and cottonwood, and its walls hold American Indian petroglyphs.

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Outdoors and wildfire

Crow Valley Campground makes the Pawnee prairie an overnight place

Crow Valley Campground turns the Pawnee prairie into an overnight place, with a small mix of reservable and first-come sites.

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Outdoors and wildfire

Crow Valley Picnic Site is prairie shade with room to linger

Crow Valley Picnic Site brings cottonwood and elm shade, small meadows, and short nature walks to the open Pawnee grassland.

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Outdoors and wildfire

Fillius Park is an old foothills stop on the scenic drive

Fillius Park, a 1914 Denver Mountain Park on Highway 74, was built around the simple act of pausing to look west.

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Outdoors and wildfire

Frank SWA marks a small wildlife edge on the Poudre River

Frank State Wildlife Area holds a quiet piece of the Poudre River, with warmwater fishing and wildlife use under site-specific CPW rules.

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