Colorado Outdoors - Colorado Outdoor Recreation

With 54 mountain summits over 14,000-feet high (commonly called "fourteeners"), Colorado lives up to its billing as the premiere Rocky Mountain playground. Divided into countless sub-groups, including the Sangre de Cristo and San Juan Mountains in the south, Sawatch Ranges (home to both Mount Elbert, highest peak in the state, and the well-known Maroon Bells/Snowmass Wilderness) in the center, and the Medicine Bow Mountains in the north, the Rockies are actually a collection of different mountain ranges, each with its own outdoor attractions. Skiers, hikers, climbers, bikers, and paddlers alike can all find countless great trails, peaks, rivers, and lakes near towns like Aspen, Vail, and Steamboat Springs to explore and experience. But even for people living along the Colorado Front Range, trail access is just as easy. A short trip from Denver, Boulder, or Fort Collins leads to Estes Park, gateway to the high alpine meadows and glacial cirques of Rocky Mountain National Park. Just beyond the Garden of the Gods in Colorado Springs, the famous Pikes Peak rises to the sky, whose expansive summit view once inspired the poem "America the Beautiful."

Across the Continental Divide, Western Colorado has its own unique charms. Right outside Montrose, the stunningly deep Black Canyon of the Gunnison is not to be missed, and mountain bikers flock to Crested Butte, Durango, and Fruita (outside Grand Junction) to ride some of the excellent singletrack. For the truly adventurous, an epic mountain bike hut to hut ride from Telluride to Moab, traverses some beautiful areas of the Uncompahgre Plateau and National Forest, and provides the convenience of hut-to-hut travel in the remote Four Corners region. The Colorado Plateau also plays home to wonderful remnants of the state’s prehistoric past, at Canyons of the Ancients National Monument, Mesa Verde National Park, and Dinosaur National Monument.

With so much to see it’s hard to know where to begin; a starting point could be The Colorado Trail which stretches across much of the state’s wild, alpine topography.

Trails.com is not associated with the Colorado Mountain Club.

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