Year-round recreation opportunities for energetic bodies.
Colorado's sunny, temperate climate makes year-round outdoor recreation possible. With 41 state parks and three national parks in Metro Denver's back yard, prime recreation opportunities abound for biking, hiking, golfing, camping, fishing, or skiing.
Recreational Amenities
- Over 100 public and private golf courses are located in Metro Denver. In addition, 11 world-class ski resorts are within 100 miles.
- The City and County of Denver has the nation's largest city park system with 200 parks. Over 34,000 acres of parks are located in the nearby mountains. Also, counties throughout Metro Denver have preserved over 143,300 acres as open space.
- Several state and local officials are collaborating to build the Northeast Greenway Corridor, a $200 million, network of trails, greenbelts, and open spaces in Denver, Aurora, Brighton, and Commerce City.
- The Great Outdoors Colorado (GOCO) Amendment to the state constitution gives a portion of state lottery proceeds to projects that preserve, protect, and enhance Colorado's outdoors. GOCO has invested $570 million in 2,800 projects throughout Colorado since its inception. In 2007, GOCO, along with the Natural Resource Ecology Lab at Colorado State University, released Colorado's first statewide inventory of open space.
- Colorado State Parks, with support from many Metro Denver counties and communities, has an ambitious plan to create a continuous trail linking the Front Range's diverse communities with a multi-use trail running from New Mexico to Wyoming.
- The Colorado Front Range Trail (CFRT) will link existing and planned trail systems with new trail corridors to create an extensive pathway system that connects Colorado's population centers.
- One of the longest recreational trails in the Metro Denver area, the High Line Canal Trail, runs 66 miles connecting Douglas, Arapahoe, and Denver Counties.
Helpful links:
Metro Denver Open Space Web sites (by county)
Adams County Open Space | Arapahoe County Recreation District | Boulder County Open Space
City and County of Broomfield Open Space | City and County of Denver Parks & Recreation District
Douglas County Parks and Trails Division | Jefferson County Open Space
Northern Colorado Open Space Web sites (by county)
Larimer County Parks and Open Lands | Upstate Colorado (Weld County) Outdoor Recreation