Sunday, June 8, 2025

North Park Colorado and the Arapaho National Wildlife Refuge



Last week, I blogged about our drive west from the Fort Collins, Colorado area along the Cache la Poudre River Scenic Byway into North Park--click here to read that post.
North Park is a high, sparsely populated basin (approximately 8,800 feet (2,700 m) in elevation) in the Rocky Mountains in north central Colorado. 
It is an expansive valley that stretches from north-central Colorado into Wyoming. Weighing in at more than a million acres that are 65% public land, North Park’s lakes, rivers, and wetlands draw all manner of wildlife, and the area features some of the most remote and sparsely populated wilderness terrains in the state.



North Park is comprised of a vast basin that’s fed by the North Platte, Michigan, Illinois, and Canadian Rivers, and is flanked by the Park Range to the west, the Medicine Bow Mountains, and the Never Summer Mountains to the east.




With over 71,000 acres to explore, State Forest State Park offers a diverse landscape of forest, majestic peaks, and alpine lakes, all brimming with wildlife. Stretching from the western slope of the Medicine Bow Mountains to the northern end of the Never Summer Mountain Range, the park offers year-round activities such as snowmobiling, geocaching, birding, hunting, horseback riding, and many more in one of the most stunning natural settings in the state.


“Moose is our claim to fame,” reads a line from State Forest State Park’s website. North Park is hailed as the Moose Viewing Capital of Colorado. The site goes on to say that an average of 600 moose are observed in North Park annually. 
We did not see any moose during our drive, but we were still excited about the female moose and her yearling calf we viewed in Rocky Mountain National Park the day before--click here-- to read that post.


As we drove along ....


...we soon passed by the small town of Walden.


There were also many cattle ranches in this area.



South of Walden, we stopped at an overlook for the Arapaho National Wildlife Refuge. The refuge sits at elevations as high as 8,700 feet, making it the highest animal refuge in the National Wildlife Refuge System in the continental US. The refuge’s habitats, which include irrigated meadows, riparian, sagebrush uplands, wetlands, and mixed conifer and aspen forests, host an abundance of diverse wildlife species.


The overlook view was magnificent!


The winding blue Illinois River fills the Arapaho National Wildlife Refuge, traveling through sagebrush and native grasses.


Please click on the photo to enlarge it to read the information on the placard.

The refuge was established in 1967 to furnish waterfowl with a suitable place to nest and rear their young. It was created in part to offset losses of nesting habitat in the prairie wetland region of the Midwest.



Please click on the photo above to read this refuge exhibit, one of many placards on site, to read how the North Park basin was formed 45 million years ago! 



The top wall of the overlook also had many informational plaques to read.



Please click to enlarge the photo.

The refuge is also home to elk, beaver, pronghorn, and porcupine.
To protect the fragile wildlife habitats it hosts, the refuge consistently closes much of the area to visitors, but a 6-mile self-guided auto route is open for year-round visitor activities and stunning scenic overlooks. We wished we had time to explore more, but vowed to return one day to see more of the refuge and North Park.


We loved seeing North Park and its natural ruggedness.

As we drove home, we passed the town of Granby and saw the headwaters of the Colorado River, and also sadly, the remains of the 2020 East Troublesome Wildfire, the second-largest wildfire in the history of Colorado.


Next, we passed through the ski town of Winter Park, where the slopes were still full of snow during our trip at the end of April.


We could have driven an hour home directly from Fort Collins, but taking the Cache La Poudre to North Park Scenic Byway-- Highway 14--was well worth the extra three-hour drive, as we passed through so many wonderful sights. 
I hope you enjoyed seeing them in my blog posts over the past few weeks!

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Sunday, June 1, 2025

The Cache la Poudre and North Park Scenic Byway in Colorado, Part One


 Colorado has designated 26 areas as official scenic byways, with just over a dozen federally classified as American Byways. My husband and I have traveled many of them since moving to Colorado twelve years ago. While on a visit to Fort Collins- click here--to read that blog post, we learned there was a scenic drive nearby we could take as a detour side trip on our way back home.

The 101-mile corridor of Highway 14 between the city of Fort Collins and Walden, Colorado, constitutes the Cache la Poudre-North Park Scenic Byway. For much of the journey, the road parallels the Cache la Poudre River, Colorado’s only federally-designated National Wild and Scenic River. The river’s name translates from French to “hide the powder.” Legend tells that the river (pronounced "poo-der") was where French fur trappers decided to bury their gunpowder for retrieval in spring to lighten their load while traveling during a snowstorm in the mid-1800s. The name Caché la Poudre in French means ‘where the powder was hidden,’ and thus the river was named.



Along the drive, the rocky canyon twists and turns, crossing the river in a few places. The lower altitudes feature places where locals gather to engage in inner-tube rides and swimmers paddle in the slower-moving shallows. Rougher water can be found upriver, where rafters and kayakers challenge upwards of Class III rapids from May until late September.


As we drove through steep canyons, we saw hikers, fishermen, and campers along the way.


We enjoyed the wild, rustic scenery we saw along this part of the river!

A short video above of rapids on the Cache la Poudre River.

It was easy to see how the Rocky Mountains got their name!


As we gained elevation, we saw beautiful forest areas...


...but we also saw some areas that had been sadly devastated by past wildfires.


We stopped at the summit of Cameron Pass  (elevation 10,276 ft; 3,132 m). The pass is a gap between the south end of the Medicine Bow Mountains and the north end of the Never Summer Mountains. 


After descending from Cameron Pass, we entered a high plain area called North Park.


North Park is a high, sparsely populated basin (approximately 8,800 feet (2,700 m) in elevation). The valley receives its name from being the northernmost of the three large mountain valleys (or parks) in Colorado on the western side of the Front Range. The others are Middle Park and South Park respectively.  The basin opens northward into Wyoming, in the direction of flow of the North Platte. On the east side, it is rimmed by the Medicine Bow Mountains, the Never Summer Mountains, and Rabbit Ears Range to the south, and the Park Range to the west. The Continental Divide rims the Park along the south and west.

I find these high-elevation "parks" so mesmerizing! We live closest to South Park, and I've often blogged about it.

I have more to show about North Park and a wonderful wildlife refuge in Part Two of my next blog post--see you then!





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