Eastern Plains

Cache la Poudre Trail

Birding Top to Bottom

This trail, based in Fort Collins, allows easy access to almost every habitat in northern Colorado, from high-elevation forest to high-quality shortgrass prairie. Some of the sites here are right in the middle of town; some are breathtakingly remote. High in the mountains, the Cache la Poudre River is born as a trickle beneath the feet of ptarmigan. Descending into the spruce woods, it grows into a stream serenaded by Boreal Owls and boreal toads, battled over by bighorn sheep. In the canyon it enjoys a rebellious adolescence, moshing with whitewater rafters and Common Mergansers, before finally maturing into a cottonwood-lined river of the plains. This trail allows easy access to almost every habitat in northern Colorado, from high-elevation forest to high-quality shortgrass prairie. Some of the sites here are right in the middle of town; some are breathtakingly remote. None of them will disappoint you.