Explore Your Parks

The Denver Mountain Parks offer a remarkable range of activities and places to enjoy. Whether you want to hike, picnic, ski, golf, or explore some of Colorado’s most famous historic sites, chances are you’ll find what you’re looking for in a Denver Mountain Park. And if you just need to get away, you can find plenty of wide-open spaces and breathing room.

North Gateway Parks

The parks’ founders dreamed of giving city dwellers access to spectacular mountain scenery, but when they initially proposed the mountain parks, mountain travel was difficult.  Automobiles were rare, and roads were few and rugged. From the start, the parks’ founders realized they would need new and improved roads. The historic Lariat Trail was the first road linking Denver to her mountain parks. Built in 1913 and flanked bu the monumental stone gateways, the Lariat Trail begins in Golden and provides a stately beginning to the historic drive to Lookout Mountain Park and beyond.

Fillius and Bergen Parks

Located in Evergreen, these parks offer scenic hikes, historic stone structures and excellent picnic spots.

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Genesee and Katherine Craig Parks

Genesee Park is home to the most well known of Denver’s bison herds, great hiking, beautiful views and fantastic picnic sites.

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Bear Creek Gateway Parks

In the early 1900s, Denver began building scenic drives through the foothills to access the mountain peaks and popular flowing streams just west of the city. With the growing popularity of the automobile, groups could venture out for the day, and Denver moved to acquire parkland along Bear, Deer, Turkey, and Cub creeks. In these parks, motorists could enjoy a picnic and fill their radiators at well-houses before continuing into the mountains.

Bell and Cub Creek Parks

These parks define the southern gateway into the town of Evergreen while protecting rolling ponderosa forests, riparian habitat and tributaries of Bear Creek.

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Corwina, O'Fallon, and Pence Parks

These parks embody the quintessential characteristics of the Denver Mountain Parks System: backcountry forests, challenging trails, flowing creeks, and shaded picnic sites.

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Dedisse Park

Dedisse Park is home not only to Evergreen Lake but also to Colorado’s first mountain golf course.

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Little and Starbuck Parks

Together comprising 400 acres, Little and Starbuck Parks offer quiet opportunities for picnics, hiking and seeing historic shelters.

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Morrison Park

Morrison Park not only offers an excellent picnic site, but also hosts one of only two remaining intact Civilian Conservation Corps camps in the country.

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Red Rocks Park

Beautiful red rock, amazing trails, a great museum...and a world class venue for live music.

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South Gateway Parks

As the mountain parks system expanded, Denver acquired land along North Turkey Creek (US 285) and built Turkey Creek Park as the gateway to the western scenery. Land for Newton Park was acquired in 1939 and 1962. Deer Creek Park lacks public facilities and is a conservation area that protects a narrow riparian corridor west of the Hogback near Jefferson County Open Space’s Deer Creek Canyon Park, as well as other conservation land in the area.

Newton and Turkey Creek Parks

Located along Turkey Creek, Newton and Turkey Creek Parks offer quiet and peaceful picnic areas.

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Mount Blue Sky Parks

Only an hour from Denver, 14,264-foot Mount Blue Sky is the city’s closest Fourteener, or peak with an elevation higher than 14,000 feet. Named for John Evans, the second Governor of Colorado Territory, and home to alpine wildflowers, mountain goats, marmots, birds, and Rocky Mountain bighorn sheep, the area affords spectacular views of distant mountain peaks, serene alpine lakes, and glacial valleys.

Echo Lake Park

Echo Lake Park, at 10,600 feet above sea level, is a gem in the Denver Mountain Park System and a must see destination.

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Summit Lake Park

At 13,000 feet, Summit Lake Park is the highest of the Denver Mountain Parks-and on of the most special.

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The Outlier Parks

Though a bit farther afield, Winter Park and Daniels Park offer a truly unique Colorado experiences, with downhill skiing and bison herds, respectively.

Daniels Park

Just 24 miles from Downtown Denver, Daniels Park is home to one of Denver's two bison herds.

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Winter Park Resort

Winter Park is Colorado’s oldest continually operated ski resort, and since 1940 has provided visitors and residents with winter and summer sports opportunities. It is located at the base of the Continental Divide in the Fraser Valley.

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