Red Rocks Trail
Where the City Meets the Mountains
The west side of urban Denver runs smack into the foothills of the Rocky Mountains. In a strip between the pine forest and the grass, you can explore an area of hogback ridges, huge red sandstone rock formations, and semiarid shrublands. Here, Canyon Wrens and Yellow-breasted Chats sing, scrub-jays and magpies complain, chipmunks chatter, and Peregrine and Prairie Falcons build nests in the cliffs. Sometimes, herds of elk roam into view. Thanks to a spectacular system of parks established with nearly a century of foresight, huge tracts of beautiful and quality habitat have been preserved for posterity, only minutes from the city.