Citizen's Guide to Colorado's Environmental Era

Home Browse Search

Boulder Creek spills out of Fourmile Canyon and flows east through the middle of the City of Boulder. Following beside the creek for some seven miles, well -used trails provide access to several city parks, a kayak slalom course, fishing ponds, and sculpture garden, among other amenities. Sand Creek, which flows through some of North Denver's most industrial areas, has undergone a major renaissance in recent years. Miles of trails and rejuvenated wetland areas now pro- vide an attractive, healthy refuge for wildlife and city dwellers alike. the People, Shoemaker observed: Instead of a place to stroll or listen to a band on a summer evening, the Platte became... a place for slaughter houses and railyards, storm water discharges and trash discards. The pall over the valley became thicker and heavier as people forgot that the South Platte once offered Denverites the amenities of a clean river with its refreshing, running water. This time, as part of a massive cleanup of the Central Platte Valley, Denverites finally reclaimed the river and gave it a park -like border where grass, shrubs and trees could soak up excess runoff. Coloradans were finally learning that floodplains are for parks and open space that soak up rainfall and floodwaters —not for concrete roads, parking lots and development that only exacerbate flooding. This farsighted approach to flood pre- vention led to the opening of Confluence Park at the junction of the South Platte River and Cherry Creek on July 4, 1976. It was the first of many waterside trails and parks that now line Colorado waters. Soon other Denver metro governments began converting the fouled, odoriferous South Platte into a series of trails, parks and boat- ing opportunities. The Greenway has been extended along most of the South Platte within Metro Denver, following the Arapahoe Greenway into Waterton Canyon where the river bursts from the mountains. There, hikers and bicyclists follow the old grade of the Denver, South Park & Pacific Railroad as it snakes its way into the high country. Waterton Trail doubles as the start of the Colorado Trail which enables you to walk, run, or bike all the way to Durango. Waterton Canyon also launches one of the state's oldest man -made waterways, the Highline Canal built in 1879. Its 71 -mile- long cottonwood shaded banks distinguish a pedestrian and bicycle trail that meanders through Denver and its suburbs to what is now Denver International Airport. Despite the Highline Canal prototype, Coloradans could do more to convert the state's vast network of irrigation canals and ditches j 2 1 COLORADO FOUNDATION FOR WATER EDUCATION to greenways. Only a few, such as Broomfield's Farmers Highline, Adams County's Niver Canal and Thomton's Union Ditch capitalize on the recreational possibilities of these his- toric human -made waterways. Adams County has installed a greenway along the South Platte where reformed quarries and sand dredging pits are now lakes and ponds. From the South Platte River, side trails follow tributaries such as Sand Creek and Clear Creek. In Jefferson County, trails follow Clear and Ralston creeks, which teased early prospectors with their golden sands. The narrow Clear Creek Canyon, unfortunately, has little room for trails beyond U.S. 6, although stretches of pathway adorn Idaho Springs with its spec- tacular Charlie Taylor Waterwheel. Golden transformed its once - trashy, inaccessible Clear Creek into interactive history and water parks where adventurers of all ages pan for gold, tour a log village or ride the white water. Littleton has also done well by its South Platte Riverway which seduces travelers with its beautiful Hudson Gardens, a botanic haven adorn- ing the former riverbed. Starting at Denver's Confluence Park, the Cherry Creek Greenway is one of the state's most extensive recreational corridors. It includes Cherry Creek and Castlewood Canyon state parks as well as the Four Mile House, a living history farm wrapped around the oldest (1859) structure in the metro area. More than a century ago, Boulder also helped pioneer the greenway initiative when it followed the advice of Frederick Law Olmsted, Jr., the father of landscape archi- tecture and park planning. Olmsted traveled worldwide advising local governments how to convert waterways to parks. His 1910 Improvement to Boulder Colorado: Report to the City Improvement Association, urged: ... keep open for public use near the heart of the city a simple piece of pretty bottom -land of the very sort that Boulder Creek has been... people in Boulder have got so accustomed to thinking of the creek and its banks as a place to throw tin cans and rubbish that it may require too great a feat of the imagination to conceive of it as a pretty shady spot with a well -kept park path running beside the mur- muring waters... Such improvements, Olmsted argued, would make citizens proud of their commu-