Even now, after decades of revitalization and efforts to stabilize flows, sections of the urban South Platte still smell of decay and waste, and city officials discourage swimming. But cyclists also pedal along miles of paved trails on the riverfront. Kayakers and surfers play in the whitewater. Carp and trout lurk under bridges, while families of ducks paddle along the calmer waters. And strips of green parks border long stretches of the river where, in previous decades, factories spewed sludge and landfills leached pollutants.

After a long era of neglect and abuse, city officials, nonprofit leaders and developers hope to build on that progress as they pose a question for the future: How can we turn the city toward the river — the waterway that made Denver’s existence on the High Plains possible — instead of putting it at our backs and ignoring it?

More than a quarter of a billion federal dollars are flowing into ecosystem restoration and flood management along the South Platte. For the first time, the Denver City Council recently created a committee dedicated to issues on and development near the river.

Developers plan to invest hundreds of millions of dollars along the river in coming years, building as much as 15 million square feet of combined new residential and commercial space on the land where Elitch Gardens Theme and Water Park sits today. If completed, that square footage will be nearly five times larger than Denver International Airport’s terminal building.

Should that and other ambitious projects reach their full potential, the Platte would serve as a focal point of brand new high-rise urban neighborhoods that expand the city’s skyline in a new direction.

“The South Platte River is the birthright of Denver,” said Jeff Shoemaker, who for 40 years led a nonprofit group created to advocate for the river. “We took that birthright and made it a toilet. Fifty years later, it can once again be celebrated as its birthright.”

Property owners ranging from the Denver Housing Authority to Stan Kroenke, the billionaire owner of the Colorado Avalanche and Denver Nuggets, to the city itself will all play roles in determining how new construction capitalizes on a restored South Platte.

The impending turnover of underutilized and unappreciated land has generated buzz and a glut of glossy renderings. At the same time, it’s inducing heartburn in some corners of the city that have seen new investment like that drive gentrification in nearby low-income and minority neighborhoods.

Still, establishing the river as an asset rather than a barrier to urban growth is a sea change that veteran Denver city-builders like architect Chris Shears have hoped for decades would come.

His firm, Shears Adkins Rockmore, has its hands in nearly every landscape-shifting project being contemplated near the South Platte today. The plans include transforming the vast parking lots around Empower Field and Ball Arena into new mixed-use neighborhoods.

Another project to the south would turn the long-vacant field once occupied by the Gates Rubber Co., just south of the Regional Transportation District’s Broadway Station, into a mixed-use community. Plans call for more than 550,000 square feet of office and retail space and nearly 900 apartments.

He compares the opportunities in front of the city today to the 1980s, when then-Mayor Federico Peña set an ambitious agenda that would lead to Denver’s evolution from a stagnant plains town to a modern metropolis.

“This is the time to plan for the future and be optimistic,” Shears said. “The river is going to be much, much more important.”

The South Platte has served as a geographic divide between east and west Denver for nearly all of the city’s existence. Generations of city residents compounded that division by adding man-made barriers, including Interstate 25 and the consolidated freight rail lines, that follow the river’s path.

For Denver city planner David Gaspers, the public and private investment in the river’s restoration and the surging interest in new development near the water present a chance to overwrite some of the mistakes of the past.

“It’s an opportunity to make Denver feel whole again,” Gaspers said. “It’s not a barrier. It’s actually a place where people want to come together.”

After century of neglect, a flood changed everything

French explorers named the South Platte River for its lassitude — in French, “platte” means flat. Some called it the “upside-down river” since, in some places, one had to dig into the riverbed to find water.

Indigenous people for centuries wintered near the confluence of the South Platte and Cherry Creek, eventually joined by explorers, French trappers and Mexican gold seekers. In 1858, after prospectors found gold nearby, Denver was born on the banks of the confluence.

The South Platte’s year-round water allowed for settlement and population growth on the arid High Plains.

“The South Platte is the cradle and birthplace of the city,” said Tom Noel, a professor emeritus of history at the University of Colorado Denver who has authored numerous books and textbooks about Colorado history. “But it took quite a while for people to respect it.”

Early Denver’s industry grew along the river. Hog farms, stockyards, factories and landfills sprouted on its banks in the late 1800s because the river could carry off all the waste, Noel said.

Workers at a paint factory on the river used to stand behind the facility and watch the river turn the color of the paint being made that day as the factory’s discharge reached the water.

The river held the city’s darker secrets: bodies, cast-off burglary loot. Only the poorest of the poor lived near the water.

The waste, the chemicals and the sludge accumulated. A Rocky Mountain News reporter in 1962 toured the river as the city considered building a sanitation project and wrote that he came away with tears in his eyes.

“The tears weren’t from emotion,” the reporter wrote. “It was from the stench. The foul odors were enough to lift the hat from your head.”

The neglected river took its vengeance in 1965. After days of rain, its waters surged on June 16, building into a moving wall that picked up debris as it rushed toward Denver — cars, mobile homes and heavy equipment all caught in the swell.

The flood killed at least 20 people in the Denver area and caused $5.4 billion in damage in today’s dollars — one of the most devastating natural disasters in city history. It wiped out railyards, warehouses, neighborhoods and all but one of the city’s bridges spanning the water.

As the river split the city, Denver state Sen. Joe Shoemaker received a call while working on his family’s farm in Iowa during a summer break. His son, Jeff, remembered his father coming back from the house, face white as paper. He told the family the river had flooded.

“What river?” responded Jeff Shoemaker, then 11 years old.

Despite growing up in Denver, he didn’t know a river existed — an ignorance, or at least common disregard, held by many in the burgeoning city until the river tried to wash it away.

The flood — and the phone call to the Shoemaker farm — altered the future of the South Platte.

In the aftermath, Denver Mayor Bill McNichols created the Platte River Development Committee in 1974 to restore the river and mitigate future flood risk. He appointed Joe Shoemaker as chairman.

A year later, the committee opened Confluence Park — the first park on the river. Though crews could build only a quarter mile of riverside trail in either direction before being blocked, the creation of the park marked a turning point in the river’s history.

The committee in 1976 morphed into the nonprofit Greenway Foundation, which methodically transformed landfills and industrial sites along the river into parks. A landfill became Globeville Landing Park. Eleven industrial sites became Commons Park, a stretch of green behind Union Station. A city maintenance site became Gates-Crescent Park, now home to the Children’s Museum of Denver.

“My dad’s motto, which is now mine, was: ‘There’s no done, there’s only next,’ ” said Jeff Shoemaker, who took over leadership of the Greenway Foundation in 1982 and worked there until his retirement in 2022.

As green spaces prospered on the riverbanks, more Denverites came to run, bike and picnic. The Greenway Foundation looked to the future, creating a series of master plans for the river and the land around it.

But the foundation — and other advocates who hoped the river could be more than a moving sewer — needed to overcome a culture that for decades ignored or scorned the South Platte.

While most Denverites now know the river exists, there is still work to be done to overcome its negative image, said Ryan Aids, current executive director of the Greenway Foundation.

“Every great city has a river running through it: Chicago, New York,” Aids said. “And every city has done what Denver did to its river in the beginning, which is neglect it, abandon it, pollute it, turn its back on it.

“Then cities started revitalization — to turn their front door to the river. And Denver is starting to do that as well.”

“A once-in-a-lifetime opportunity”

City documents recognize the potential in the land along the river.

The 2019 version of Blueprint Denver, the city’s comprehensive plan, includes a growth strategy map. It shows clusters of dense future development along the river, marking those areas as “regional centers.” Regional centers, as a category, are expected to provide 50% of the city’s job growth and 30% of its housing growth by 2040.

But with the renewed attention to long-neglected areas near the South Platte comes the specter that new money will push out longtime residents. As the city mitigates flood risk and pollution — the factors that made living near the river more of a curse than a blessing — low-income residents will be vulnerable to rising costs.

That’s a reality Denver knows well after some of its long-established Black and Latino neighborhoods, themselves largely the result of racist housing policy, faced rapid demographic change as the city’s population grew over the last two decades.

In west Denver, Councilwoman Jamie Torres’ district includes some of those long-neglected areas that are now seeing a swell of interest and investment.

Sun Valley is home to both subsidized housing and the Denver Broncos’ stadium. A framework plan to build on Empower Field’s south lots could be a catalyst for a stampede of new development — though that is on hold for now and depends on the whims of the franchise’s new ownership group, which hasn’t ruled out the option of building a new stadium elsewhere.

On the east side of the river, the Auraria neighborhood is the epicenter of ambitious projects that, if fully realized, could see the city’s skyline roughly double in size.

Much of that neighborhood, once home to a largely Latino community, was already wiped away and remade in the last century. After the 1965 flood battered the economically marginalized neighborhood, voters in 1969 passed a bond measure that laid the groundwork for the multi-school college campus that anchors the area today.

All the potential development near the river “can marginalize existing communities if there isn’t any way of shepherding that dialog together — because it’s just so based on property ownership,” Torres said. “That could be a really gentrifying factor.”

But the council’s newly formed committee promises to shape the future of Denver and its river. And Torres is its chair.

The South Platte River Committee has met just twice since forming in July, but even its creation sends a message, according to council leaders. City staffer members focused on the river see it as much more than a sleepy procedural step.

“What will make any project (or) any effort great is leadership support,” said Ashlee Grace, the director of the city’s Waterway Resiliency Program, the name of the city-run river project fueled by $350 million in federal river restoration money. “This committee forming, I think, is a huge step for the city. Our elected leaders recognize the value of the South Platte River and how it can truly be a part of a vibrant future for Denver.”

The U.S. Army Corp of Engineers and then-Mayor Michael Hancock signed the agreement launching the Waterway Resiliency Program in May 2023 after years of study, negotiations and wrangling for federal funding. But even that mammoth undertaking is focused only on a portion of the river, along with its Harvard Gulch and Weir Gulch tributaries.

Private projects such as the long-awaited River Mile development — slated to eventually replace Elitch Gardens — are also aimed at improving the health of the river, while adding recreational opportunities and housing for thousands of people.

Council president Amanda Sandoval highlighted other projects with the potential to transform the city, all within half a mile of the river, including the still-progressing National Western Center campus overhaul north of downtown and the 60-acre blank slate of state-owned land at the former Burnham Yard railyards, south of the city center.

The river “is literally running through all of the catalytic projects that are all coming to fruition at the same time,” Sandoval said in an interview. “It’s a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. If we don’t prioritize it, it will be done piecemeal.”

Smaller projects have tested the waters

The megaprojects on the horizon follow smaller redevelopments on the South Platte.

Developer Susan Powers remembers when she first came across the abandoned warehouse and barrel-roofed building that she and her partners eventually would turn into the $65 million mixed-used development dubbed Steam on the Platte.

She was riding her bike along the river when she came upon an unexpected detour that routed her onto Zuni Street near Old West Colfax Avenue. There she spotted the cluster of buildings on the river’s eastern bank. That former warehouse has been transformed into an office building that appeals to techie tenants, while the barrel-roofed building is occupied by Raices Brewing Company and its often-bustling taproom.

As far as Powers knows, Raices is the only bar or restaurant in the city that offers outdoor seating along the South Platte — for now, at least.

“When you go there, it has its own little ecosystem,” Powers said. “Rabbits are still running around. There are lots of birds, and you can really get away from what really, only a couple of blocks away, is more urban life.”

Powers has sold her stake in the office building and plans to sell Raices’ owners their building. She also hopes to sell a vacant chunk of land that could see a new condo development, with the building facing the river.

Steam on the Platte may gain much more company along those banks in the decades to come.

On the east side of the river, the potential vertical development would come on the seas of asphalt parking along Speer Boulevard and Auraria Parkway, turning them into lively mixed-use neighborhoods. The River Mile and Ball Arena projects are siblings divided mainly by the consolidated rail tracks that run between the arena and the amusement park.

The South Platte River Committee on Aug. 14 received a briefing from city planning and finance staff regarding plans to rezone 70 acres of land around Ball Arena.

Details shared in that briefing included 6,000 units of apartments and other new housing, more than 1,000 of which would be reserved for low-income residents. There would be no limit on building heights on the land if the property owner — billionaire developer and sports mogul Stan Kroenke’s company, Kroenke Sports and Entertainment — were to live up to city-brokered affordable housing conditions.

The arena district wouldn’t directly touch the river, but a network of walking and biking trails would help weave it into the city’s multimodal transportation network, providing easy access to the river for future residents and visitors. In fact, plans call for eight bike and pedestrian bridges that either carry users to the South Platte or Cherry Creek or take them over those two waterways, said Greg Dorolek a landscape architect working on that project.

Dorolek is co-president of Wenk Associates, which is among the many cooks in the kitchen for the Ball Arena area redevelopment. It’s also involved in the neighboring River Mile project.

“You can live on this river and restore it at the same time, and I think it’s going to be exciting,” Dorolek said, adding that Denver is on the verge of becoming “a river city.”

The River Mile made a big splash when its ambitious plan was unveiled in early 2018. It’s a joint endeavor between Kroenke’s KSE and boutique developer Revesco Properties, and the development’s leaders seek to fill in what Revesco president and CEO Rhys Duggan has referred to as “the doughnut hole” between downtown and the rest of the city.

Renderings released over the years have shown attention-grabbing details, from tall, spindly residential towers to grand promenades that step down to the water. Anchoring it all is the river.

The development team also has pledged to invest $100 million in reinvigorating the milelong stretch of the South Platte, including likely dredging 6 to 8 feet of sand from the riverbed to create a narrower, deeper channel that would help restore fish habitat.

For now, the ambitious project is in a holding pattern as Duggan and company keep their eyes on the ebbs and flows of another often-unpredictable force: the U.S. economy.

“Obviously, the interest rate environment has shifted dramatically in the last two years, and I think we need to come into a period of normalization before we can get to work on the river,” Duggan told The Denver Post.

The development team continues to work on designs, engineering and entitlements as well as seek local and federal approvals needed for the work.

Meanwhile, Duggan is celebrating the momentum on the river.

When he rides his bike along the banks, he sees a buildup of exciting new development, including the Hurley Place and Denargo Market projects in the River North Art District northeast of downtown.

The South Platte isn’t a barrier. It isn’t a dump. Now, Duggan said, it’s a public asset.

Finding an oasis close to home

On a recent afternoon just north of Denver, Jack Borthwick tossed his fly fishing rod off the bridge to a friend standing below on the riverbank. A giant carp thrashed on the line, bending the rod — now in Nic Hall’s hands — into a sharp U.

Car tires, a Mountain Dew bottle and an Amazon box littered the bank. A broken-down and opened-up trailer sat abandoned just off the road, and an eerie industrial siren screeched from across the river.

On one side of the bridge, a water treatment plant churned through 2.2 million peoples’ waste, its smell sitting on everything in its vicinity. On the other, the smokestacks of Suncor Energy’s oil refinery thrust toward the sun.

But this is one of Borthwick’s favorite places to fish, and the carp pulling on his rod made the scramble up and down the banks worth it.

He said the thrill of sight-casting to huge carp on unoccupied riverbanks beats fighting crowds for prime fishing spots on the more famous trout waters an hour or so outside of Denver.

Best of all, this spot — known as “The Stank” —  is 10 minutes from his house in northwest Denver.

The river and its parks are critical pieces of nature accessible to people in the city who don’t have the money, means or time to drive to the mountains, said Nic Hall, Borthwick’s fishing partner and the president of Denver Trout Unlimited. The Denver chapter of the national fishing and conservation group is the only local affiliate dedicated to a city river.

“A lot of people look at an urban river and think, ‘Gross,’ ” Hall said as he scouted for carp. “But it doesn’t have to be that way.”

Slowly, Denverites’ perception of the river is shifting, said Jolon Clark, the executive director of Denver Parks and Recreation.

He worked for the Greenway Foundation for 18 years and served two terms on the City Council before joining new Mayor Mike Johnston’s administration last year.

“There’s still a lot of people who don’t know what’s going on down on the river,” Clark said. “But being in the middle of the city and seeing a skyscraper — and a blue heron fishing right beneath it — that’s just a magical experience.”

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Roger Hill has fought for more than a decade to reclaim public access to these rivers where ill-informed or intentionally errant landowners have attempted to block access. He calls his act of fishing on stretches where public waterways flow through private property marked with no trespassing signs “civil disobedience.” Just this week, the 83-year-old resolved to continue his fight, and asked others to join the movement.

We echo his call for action but want to be clear that we are not calling for civil disobedience because the law is on Hills’ side.

Law enforcement officers should know that they cannot enforce trespassing laws on public property – in this case, rivers that are floatable even as they pass through private land. Homeowners who call a local sheriff on fishermen and rafters should be met with laughter.

Collectively ignoring these false claims on publicly owned waterways is the only path forward, after years of ignored pleas for change. Lawmakers have refused to address the issue for years and the Colorado Supreme Court has avoided ruling on cases. Every year of inaction by the Capitol and the courts, landowners are emboldened to claim more of our natural resources from the public.

However, that doesn’t mean the “Right to Wade” movement is not without risk.

Smart landowners simply post no-trespassing signs along the water’s edge hoping to discourage people ignorant of the law from using the river along their property. Aggressive landowners have taken to stringing wires across the river with “Keep Out” signs. Crazy landowners might assault people, brandish and even fire weapons, or commit other crimes in an effort to retain their squatter’s claim on a public resource.

Coloradans naturally respect private property rights but we’d remind recreation enthusiasts: to stay on the river, keep noise levels down, and not to litter, clean fish or go to the bathroom on the adjacent banks.

These rivers have not been purchased with the transfer of a land title or even the transfer of water rights. If a landowner holds some right to take some water from the Colorado River, that does not mean they own the entire river while it’s on their property. Common sense tells us this, as does the public trust doctrine.

Water use rights – irrigation, drinking, etc. — are secured by their own laws as spelled out in the Colorado Constitution in Article XVI. Nobody is trying to change those laws or change anyone’s rightful claim to use the water.

As Coloradans begin reclaiming their property, lawmakers can learn a lot by reading the excellent laws in Montana that cement the right to access waterways that flow through private lands. A new Colorado law rumored to be drafted for the 2025 legislative session should include these five key provisions modeled after the law in Montana:

1. Define “navigable” waters broadly to include waters that historically were used for log floating, fur trading, and mining and in the modern day can be used for recreational activities like rafting, kayaking, guided fishing or floating.

2. Landowners do not have to grant any easement for access to the waters, but cannot restrict access to the water from other public or private land.

3. A right to portage around barriers in water in the least intrusive manner possible without damaging property.

4.  A right to use the streambed as defined by the high-water mark of the river.

5. And finally, indemnity for landowners from any claim of harm that may come to people using the river or river bank or injured while accessing private property in an emergency.

Anything less than this would be a disservice to Coloradans.

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Because of their love for the area and their impact on Glacier Basin – to improve the fishing in the area for his guests, Abner dammed the creek to create the lake – the lake now bears their surname. And because of the busy Sprague Lake Lodge they operated from 1910 to 1940, there are many trails to explore in the vicinity, which became Rocky Mountain National Park in 1915.

One of those trails is the Glacier Creek Trail.

This trail isn’t so much a single trail but a network of paths through the forests surrounding Sprague Lake. Adventurous hikers may want to take the long way around, starting at Sprague Lake, Glacier Basin Campground (if camping) or the Storm Pass Trailhead.

Shorter hikes can be done as a loop around Sprague Lake, up onto the moraine above the lake and down into the forest, taking the turn off to the right rather than heading to Storm Pass Trailhead.

A really wonderful option for a full-day hike is to start at Sprague Lake, pick up the Glacier Creek Trail at the east end of the lake, follow it east into the forest and then turn right to follow it back west again towards Bear Lake.

The network of trails parallel Bear Lake Corridor, navigating past many meadows in this valley, and up to Bear Lake. At Bear Lake, follow the eastern side of the lake to pick up the Bear Lake – Bierstadt Lake Trail, following it to Bierstadt Lake and then down to the Bierstadt Lake Trailhead. From this point, cross the road to the Storm Pass Trailhead and pick the Glacier Creek Trail back up on the forest and head east to Sprague Lake.

At about 8 miles, this loop provides some astonishing views plus many opportunities to see wildlife, like mule deer, snowshoe hare, elk, pine squirrels, northern flickers, Stellar’s jays, dark-eye juncos and many other species of forest-loving birds.

For a shorter trek, take the two-mile loop that starts at the east end of Sprague Lake. Near the bridge, the trail heads down into the forest, snaking through ponderosa pine and past a lush green meadow.

At about a half mile, the trail reaches a junction, where hikers turn right. Follow this trail as it begins to climb up the moraine. In about 500 feet, the trail reaches the Glacier Creek Trail, which runs northeast and southwest. Turn right at this junction to head towards Boulder Brook and Bear Lake.

Follow the trail, which is now the Glacier Creek Trail, for 1.1 miles as it stays along a level path on the moraine through thick forest and above meadows.

At slightly more than one mile, the trail reaches another junction, connecting with the Storm Pass Trail. Make a right at this junction.

Interestingly, the trail crosses the Alva B. Adams Tunnel at this point. This 13-mile cement-lined tunnel passes underneath Rocky Mountain National Park to deliver water from Lake Granby to East Portal on the west side of Estes Park. There are no markers or indicators of what lies beneath the ground but using the COTrex app will show you the path of the tunnel below the trail.

In 0.3 miles, the trail reaches a four-way junction, with connections to Glacier Creek, Storm Pass, Bear Lake, Bierstadt Lake and Glacier Gorge trails. Take a right and follow the trail through the thinner forest.

At 0.2 miles, the trail reaches the Sprague Lake parking lot on the west end of Sprague Lake.

This section of RMNP requires a timed entry reservation from 5 a.m. to 6 p.m. until October 20. The hiker shuttle bus takes hikers into the Bear Lake Corridor but does not stop at Sprague Lake. A park pass is also required to enter Rocky Mountain National Park.

For more information about timed entry or hiking in RMNP, visit https://www.nps.gov/romo/index.htm.

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Roger Hill hiked across federally managed public land to enter the river, donned his straw hat, and cast his dry-fly line along that privately owned stretch last weekend without incident. This week, he urged other anglers statewide to replicate his civil disobedience and assert a public right to fish and float on navigable rivers  — a freedom established in other western states.

It’s the latest twist in a fight that began in the summer of 2012 on this same stretch of the Arkansas River, just upriver from the confluence with Texas Creek near Cotopaxi. A landowner threw baseball-sized rocks at Hill, forcing him to leave.  A few years later, her husband fired shots at Hill’s friend. A retired physicist from Colorado Springs, Hill filed a lawsuit claiming a public right to wade on riverbeds — and won — until landowners, with support from Colorado Attorney General Phil Weiser, appealed to the Colorado Supreme Court. High court judges in June 2023 dismissed Hill’s case, ruling that he lacked legal standing to proactively sue to establish a public right to wade in streams and rivers.

The ruling means Hill cannot advance his legal case unless he can raise the public access issue as a defense.

He had notified the Fremont County sheriff before he went fishing last Saturday, assuming an arrest or ticket for trespassing would give him the legal standing the state Supreme Court has required to have the core of his case heard.

“I didn’t catch a single fish and I’m pissed off that I wasn’t arrested,” Hill said. “Somebody’s got to do it…. Strength in numbers would help.”

“He needs to stop or suffer the consequences,” said James Gibson, an owner of property where Hill fished. “If he’s not breaking the law, there’s nothing to be done. I hope this gets settled.”

Fremont County Sheriff’s Cpl. Caleb Chase said the county would leave any enforcement to Colorado Parks and Wildlife, part of the state government. At CPW, a spokesman said the agency oversees fish but lacks jurisdiction over water and land adjacent to Colorado’s streams and rivers.

Colorado’s AG Weiser declined to comment.

Colorado authorities allow private ownership of riverbeds while other states, including Montana, New Mexico, and Nevada, treat rivers deemed “navigable” at statehood as public. But recreational activities, including fishing and whitewater rafting, increasingly play a primary role in the state’s economy and strain Colorado’s position as an outlier. The U.S. Supreme Court has ruled that states hold ownership of navigable riverbeds in trust for the public. Public access has become a vexing issue as wealthy landowners purchase more property along the West’s mountain streams and rivers.

This time, Colorado Backcountry Hunters and Anglers co-chairman Don Holmstrom joined Hill in fishing along the Arkansas, where trappers and railroad companies in the 1870s used the river for the commercial purposes of transporting pelts and tens of thousands of railroad ties.

“Roger Hill is a hero,” said Holmstrom, who has helped lobby for an intervention by Gov. Jared Polis to designate public-access waterways. The increasing buy-ups of riverside property in the West “makes it a fight for the public interest versus those wealthy landowners who are fighting against the public interest,” he said. “These are public pathways throughout the state that people should be able to enjoy — to fish, float and run the whitewater. ”

University of Colorado law professor Mark Squillace, who has helped represent Hill, said the state Supreme Court dismissal over legal standing misinterpreted well-established principles. “You don’t have to put yourself in harm’s way in order to test your legal rights.” He has criticized state leaders for siding with riverside landowners.

“People should exercise their right to use the beds of navigable streams,” Squillace said. “Unless we can get somebody arrested or ticketed, or something, we don’t have a way to get into court.”

Landowners said they were aware of Hill’s defiant fishing last weekend. They’d assumed the Supreme Court dismissal ended the fight.

“We own the river bottom,” said Earl Pfeiffer, a resident since 2010. “Essentially, what these guys are asking is that the state takes ownership of the land. If the government wants to take it, we have to figure out a way to be compensated for that. I would rather not deed it over to the state,” he said.

He and his wife enjoy sitting at their house just 35 feet above the water as it flows.

“It is entertaining for us to sit up on our deck and watch people fishing,” Pfeiffer said. “If people want to fish, we are not going to stop them – unless they are really rowdy, making a mess, throwing garbage. It would be great if they’d ask permission. We are not here to give anybody a hard time.”

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What it lacks is adequate creek access for visitors to stop and savor its beauty or hike along its banks. The highway, U.S. 6, is off-limits to runners and cyclists because its five dark tunnels are so narrow, and pullouts are scarce — with some posing traffic dangers. Motorists get only occasional glimpses of the soaring canyon walls above because the curving highway commands their full attention.

That’s going to change over the next two years, thanks to an ambitious construction project that will dramatically improve recreational access to the canyon. Jefferson County’s Open Space division is spending $80 million to extend the Clear Creek Canyon trail three miles upstream from its current terminus at Tunnel 1, which is located two miles west of Golden. About 1.25 miles of new trail is slated to open just west of Tunnel 1 next year, with another 1.75 miles to follow in 2026. Eventually the trail will connect with Clear Creek County trails through Idaho Springs and beyond.

If $80 million seems like a lot for three miles of concrete trail, it is. But the complexity of the project, with a narrow creek and highway hemmed in by steep mountainsides, presents major engineering hurdles. In some sections, the trail is being built on elevated concrete viaducts resembling the sweeping roadway decks of Interstate 70 as it runs through Glenwood Canyon.

The project includes seven new bridges over Clear Creek, one new bridge over the highway, a new underpass beneath the highway and two new trailheads with restrooms and parking spaces for 170 cars. A park at one of the trailheads will feature a one-mile loop for hikers and creek access.

“It’s pretty wild,” project manager Scot Grossman said while providing a guided tour of the area in mid-August. “What we’re doing is a generational project.

“This has statewide and national significance,” he continued. “We’re creating safe access to the creek, as well as all the recreational amenities – rock climbing, slack-lining, tubing, rafting, fishing, gold panning. I love the idea of little kids growing up in Golden 15 years from now, they get their little bike posses together on Saturday and ride up the trail to go fishing, climbing, or to ride a lap at Centennial Cone (park) and ride back down.”

“We’re building this for 100 years”

Great Outdoors Colorado — which distributes Colorado Lottery proceeds — provided a $7-million grant for the current construction project. The Denver Regional Council of Governments chipped in another $10.25 million. GOCO previously gave the Clear Creek Canyon trail effort $10.5 million for segments that have already been completed.

But the remainder of the $80 million is coming out of the Jeffco Open Space budget, which is funded by a dedicated 0.5% sales tax that voters approved in 1972. That tax is not subject to the restraints of the TABOR amendment, approved by Colorado voters in 1992, which limits the amount of revenue governments in the state can retain and spend.

“Most of the open space programs around the Front Range have a similar sales tax,” Grossman explained. “Ours predates Tabor by 20 years or so, so there’s no sunset (provision) on it, which is really fortunate for us. Other agencies have a 10- or 15-year sunset, and they have to go back to the voters to re-up their funding.”

CDOT is also working on the project in an effort to create safer motorist access to creek attractions than has been the case in the past. “They’re the other landowner here,” Grossman said. “Their mission is to get people through the canyon safely and efficiently. Our visitors, when they stop, they pull out in every little nook and cranny. Doors open, dogs come out, strollers, bikes. It’s just not a safe environment to recreate in.”

In 1871 a narrow-gauge railway began service in the canyon from Golden to the mining towns of Clear Creek County. The current construction project takes advantage of some of its grades. Prior to the construction of Interstate 70 in the 1960s and ’70s, Clear Creek Canyon was the primary route to the mountains for Denver motorists. .

Now, Jeffco’s Clear Creek Canyon Park is in the process of stretching up the canyon along the creek from Golden to Clear Creek County. The first segment opened in 2021 with the debut of the $19-million Gateway trailhead just west of the intersection of U.S. 6, Colorado 93 and Colorado 58. From there, the existing trail extends 1.75 miles to Tunnel 1.

The Clear Creek Canyon trail will be the middle segment of the greater Peaks to Plains trail, which eventually will extend 65 miles from the foot of Loveland Pass through Georgetown, Idaho Springs and Clear Creek Canyon to the confluence of Clear Creek with the South Platte River in Adams County. It is already complete from the Clear Creek Gateway trailhead to the Platte, near 74th Avenue and York Street, via Golden, Wheat Ridge and Denver.

“We’re building this for 100 years,” Grossman said. “We really want to make sure this is here for three or four generations. That takes time. The geologic, ecologic and hydrologic challenges are immense. We have world-class whitewater here that gets really high in the spring. And, you can see the geologic constraints. We’re in a deep canyon with rock everywhere.”

A floating trail, like a mini-Glenwood Canyon

Construction manager Jeff Hoge, a cyclist, already is looking forward to exchanging his hard hat for a cycling helmet.

“I can’t wait for this,” Hoge said. “I’m a cyclist, I grew up here, and I’ve never been able to ride a bike legally on U.S. 6. That’s exciting. As far as the construction part of it, this is a dream job for a construction manager.”

The three-mile section now being built will climb 300 feet from Tunnel 1 to Huntsman Gulch. All of it will be wheelchair accessible and comply with the Americans with Disabilities Act, which means maximum grades of 5%. The walls of the canyon soar 1,000 feet over the creek, which often is very narrow, which is why construction engineers opted for building a viaduct through those sections. It also has less impact on creekside vegetation, they say.

“This is a heavy civil construction project, but we really pride ourselves on having a really light touch, a really surgical approach, because at the end of the day we are an open-space organization,” Grossman said. “We’re a balance of recreation and conservation.

“That viaduct, I think, perfectly sums up ‘heavy civil’ with a light touch. That is a difficult thing to engineer and build, but the impact on the land is way smaller and lighter than cutting out (a streamside slope) and filling back in,” he added.

To create the viaduct supports, workers drill 30 to 40 feet through surface rock and soil until they reach bedrock. Then they drill another 12 feet into bedrock to anchor concrete columns that will support the deck on which more concrete will be poured for the trail.

“This is our new tool, a ‘floating trail,’ a mini-Glenwood Canyon — same design principles,” Grossman said. “We’re basically building a 10-foot-wide road. It’s like what CDOT is doing on Floyd Hill right now — same concept, just smaller.”

The first new trailhead, about a mile upstream from Tunnel 1, will include a roadside parking lot that can accommodate 40 cars, along with a bridge over Clear Creek to the trail.The second new trailhead, at Huntsman Gulch, will offer a place to park, linger and explore which Grossman calls “a park within a park.” The parking lot will be built to handle 70 cars, and there will be a bridge across the highway to the trail. Another bridge will take visitors over the creek to a secondary trail accessing a shady one-mile hiking loop with a natural surface.

When the Huntsman segment is complete in 2026, it will leave a six-mile gap between Huntsman and a segment of the project upstream that opened in 2017, providing access to Jeffco’s Centennial Cone Park near the Clear Creek County line. Grossman said filling that gap, which would complete Jeffco’s part in the Peaks to Plains trail, could take another seven to 10 years depending on funding.

“This is a really big project,” Grossman said. “There’s a lot of money invested from taxpayers of all kinds — federal, state, local, people who play the lottery.

“I start every presentation I give with how privileged I am to do this, to have the responsibility – which is weighty – to do stuff like this for generations to come,” he added. “I’m just a nameless face three generations from now, but this is a legacy for all of us.”

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The Brainard Lake Recreation Area — with its beautiful lakes, great hiking, expansive views and dramatic mountain peaks on the edge of the Indian Peaks Wilderness — is one of the most attractive recreational destinations in northern Colorado.

But it makes me think of a quote by baseball Hall of Famer Yogi Berra, who baby boomers remember as much for his memorable non-sequiturs as his baseball accomplishments. Of a particularly busy restaurant, he famously said, “Nobody goes there anymore, it’s too crowded.”

The Brainard Lake Recreation Area has gotten too crowded over the past decade, so a reservation system was instituted in 2021. It’s very easy to fall into the rut of looking elsewhere for outdoor recreation options instead of dealing with reservation hassles, but Brainard Lake is worth the time and effort to snag a permit — if you can be flexible.

The two most dramatic peaks at Brainard Lake are Mount Toll and Mount Audubon, part of a stunning cluster of mountains strung along the Continental Divide that is visible from Boulder and much of northern Colorado. Toll tops out at just under 13,000 feet, while Audubon’s summit stands at 13,223 feet.

My favorite Brainard Lake memories involve them both. Back in the 1990s when I was new to ski mountaineering, I climbed Toll and descended on skis with Ron Haddad, author of “Indian Peak Descents,” a guidebook about the area. It was the Fourth of July, but the ski route on the peak still had enough snow for a sublime 1,600-foot descent. That adventure remains one of my most memorable and enjoyable days on skis.

Not long after that, I saw a photo of Toll that was taken from the summit of Audubon. Toll is one of the most picturesque peaks in northern Colorado, and seeing what it looks like from Audubon — only 1.2 miles from summit to summit — fired my imagination. I knew I had to climb Audubon and get that photo of Toll.

Climbing Audubon from the Mitchell Lake trailhead at Brainard Lake involves a hike of 8 miles roundtri,p with an ascent of 2,500 feet. Along the way and on the summit, there are stunning views of Longs Peak, 11 miles to the north in Rocky Mountain National Park. And when Mount Toll comes into view near the summit of Audubon, the view is mesmerizing. Audubon is a great example of how 13,000-foot peaks can be every bit as fun and rewarding to climb as fourteeners.

For those preferring less arduous ways to enjoy the Brainard Lake area, I recommend the hike to Blue Lake, which is situated at the foot of Mount Toll. It’s a 5-mile roundtrip trek with an ascent of 790 feet from the Mitchell Lake trailhead.

The lake’s deep blue hue is stunning, and I’ll never forget walking across it when we skied Mount Toll. Even on the Fourth of July that year, it was still frozen.

Brainard Lake also has five picnic areas, and there are fishing spots within the recreation area.

Reservations are required to park in the Brainard Lake Recreation area ($14 plus a $2 reservation fee) and are sold via recreation.gov. It is possible to park for free without a reservation, just outside the recreation area entry at the Gateway Trailhead lot, but that would require hiking 2 miles just to get to Brainard Lake and 3 miles to get to the Mitchell Lake trailhead.

Another way to enjoy Brainard Lake and beat the reservation requirement is to ride in on a bicycle. Try parking in the RTD lot in Nederland and biking to Brainard Lake via the Peak to Peak Highway during leaf-peeping season. It’s about 16 miles one way and the views of flaming aspen can be phenomenal.

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The closure began Wednesday after city officials recorded water temperatures over two days topping 75 degrees – the agreed-on threshold in the local river management plan. City crews on Wednesday were posting signs at popular river access points, and shops that rent tubes for floating turned away scores of tourists.

“We want to protect fish in the river. We want to save the Yampa River,” said MJ LaBenne, helping to run Backdoor Sports, one of several businesses that cater to tourists and rent tubes for floating down the river through Steamboat.

“It’s sad. Our business takes a hit — all these families that planned around this. It hurts us in more than financial ways. We’re taking a lot of calls, having to turn a lot of families away.”

They suggest soaking in the hot springs and riding bicycles instead of floating down the river.

Steamboat Springs Parks and Recreation officials declared the closure Tuesday night after measuring river water temperatures on Monday and Tuesday. No end date has been set. The closure means all river-related commercial activities, such as guided fishing, are suspended. In addition, the city officials have asked that everybody — tubers, paddle boarders, anglers — voluntarily adhere to the closure.

National Weather Service forecasts show continued higher-than-average heat in Steamboat Springs this week, with temperatures reaching 88 degrees on Wednesday and staying at 80 degrees or higher through Sunday. Afternoon rain could help reduce heat. Water flows in the Yampa have measured above 120 cubic feet per second — enough to appeal to river users.

Steamboat Springs has adopted river management rules that require closures for tubing and angling if water temperatures exceed 75 degrees for two days and when water flows decrease to less than 85 cubic feet per second.

Elevated water temperatures strain aquatic life. By keeping people off the river, officials said, they hope to minimize overall impacts.

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Rocky Mountain Lake — located at 3301 West 46th Avenue in Denver — closed Thursday after recent testing found toxic levels of algae around the shoreline, the Denver Department of Public Health and Environment said in a statement on social media.

“This algae can make people and pets sick, so stay safe and stay out of the water,” Denver health officials said, adding that warning signs had been posted around the lake.

Recent routine testing at Lake Arbor in Arvada also revealed blue-green algae was approaching toxic levels, forcing the city to close the lake indefinitely Thursday, Arvada officials said in a news release.

Arvada officials will continue to test the water for levels of blue-green algae and — once it’s safe — said they will reopen the lake for fishing and non-motorized boats such as kayaks and small paddleboards.

Body contact with the water at Lake Arbor is not permitted, Arvada officials said.

The number of algae blooms will increase as Colorado’s climate becomes warmer, according to previous reporting. The blue-green algae found in the lakes are naturally occurring and an important part of the ecosystem, but the blooms can produce toxins if they grow big enough.

Harmful algae looks like thick pea soup or spilled paint with a green, red, gold or turquoise color. They also often have foam or scum.

Symptoms of exposure to toxic levels of algae include skin irritation, diarrhea, stomach pain, fever, headache or a sore throat. The toxins can be fatal to pets, like dogs, that swim in the waters.

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Photos of the pond, with its surface reflecting a historic barn and snowcapped peaks, adorn postcards, puzzles and tourism articles promoting Twin Lakes — as well as the website of the luxury developer now accused of draining the same picturesque pond and surrounding wetlands.

In May, locals noticed the pond’s water levels declining. Now, nothing but a mud pit remains.

The drying of the pond and the channel that feeds it has caused a rift in tiny Twin Lakes, home to a handful of inns, a general store, a saloon and about 300 people. The historic town 20 miles south of Leadville, along with its two larger namesake reservoirs, are a haven for campers, hikers and anglers. The town also serves as a stopping point for people traveling to Aspen over Independence Pass.

“We had no notice, no warning, no input,” Jennifer Schubert-Akin, a 17-year homeowner in Twin Lakes, said of the developer’s drying of the pond. “It’s kind of like giving us the middle finger.”

The dry pond prompted some residents to ask the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to investigate the developer, AngelView at Twin Lakes, and to lobby county officials to deny final approval of the development’s plans.

The developer, Alan Elias, said he and his company did nothing wrong when they blocked the water from flowing to the pond, known locally as the “Barn Pond.”

The channel that fed the pond is an illegal ditch with no associated water rights, he said, and he has no authority or obligation to send water to the pond.

“It’s extremely complicated and I wish we could find peace in this community, but the water has, quite frankly, divided us,” Elias said. “Hopefully over time it’ll sort itself out.”

Water for decades has run down the slopes of Mount Elbert through the West Fork of Bartlett Gulch, which branches into two channels north of Twin Lakes. One channel flows southeast, through a corner of the AngelView property and to the reservoir. The other flows south, through the outskirts of town — to the Barn Pond and a series of other ponds — and then to the reservoir.

AngelView’s water engineer maintains that the channel that flows to the Barn Pond is a human-made ditch that has been diverting water illegally from Bartlett Gulch. Therefore, the water must run only through the channel that goes to their property, said Steve Bushong, the developer’s water attorney, who echoed Elias in saying AngelView has no legal obligation to channel water to the pond.

This spring, AngelView deepened the streambed where the two channels split, sending all the water to the channel that flows southeast and drying the channel to the pond.

Elias and Bushong said they deepened the streambed to allow for higher runoff levels, to prevent flooding and to ensure they meet their legal obligation to measure water flow farther downstream.

Ultimately, the water that flows down the gulch belongs to downstream users, including AngelView, Lake County and hundreds of others with rights in the Arkansas River basin, Bushong said.

“Every drop of water is pretty much allocated, either to downstream senior water rights or the interstate compact,” he said. “So while you understand why someone might think they’d just like to have a beaver pond and have a ditch and take a little water out … that’s literally taking someone else’s water.”

It’s up to the Colorado Division of Water Resources to decide where to send the water, Bushong said.

The office’s top water engineer for the Arkansas River basin, Rachel Zancanella, said in an email that the division had not yet decided whether the channel that leads to the pond is natural or an illegal ditch. She planned to visit the area this week to investigate.

Those in Twin Lakes advocating for the return of the pond, however, point to maps that show streams flowing in the Barn Pond area in 1935. They argue it was a natural stream, not a human-made ditch.

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, which helps enforce the Clean Water Act, is now investigating AngelView’s deepening of the waterway, as well as work done to wetlands on the main development property, spokesman Michael Graff said. Elias is cooperating with the investigation, Graff said.

Beyond the complex legal arguments, some residents said the town has lost a valuable resource.

Don Westfall could see the pond from his front porch and loved to watch visitors take in the view or enjoy benches built by locals by the pond shore. Trout thrived in the pond and spawned in the channel near his property, he said.

Now, people either walk straight past the mud pit or walk over and turn back, he said.

Schubert-Akin said she did not oppose the development before the water issue arose. She thought the developer’s plans fit well with the community.

Kelly Sweeney, another resident, agreed.

“We’re not anti-development — just obey the law,” she said.

The development is in its last stages of preparation and Elias expects to receive final approval from Lake County leaders in the coming weeks. With that approval, he’ll be able to start selling the 18 available lots, which start at $1 million.

Elias said he is proud of the work he’s done to maintain the natural beauty of the 75-acre development by leaving large swaths of it undeveloped, including a 9-acre wildlife corridor. He has spent time and money restoring and maintaining acres of wetlands on his property. Eventually, he plans to build information signage and a trail around the wetlands on his property, though they will not be open to the public.

The anger toward AngelView is not fair, he said, since the company is simply following the law.

“It’s tough to have something beautiful and then lose it,” Elias said. “I really, truly feel for my neighbors, that they don’t have something.”

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Sink a line in Crested Butte

Thrillers aren’t exactly known for their literary prowess, and yet Denver-based writer Peter Heller – a poet and former journalist – manages to weave high-quality nature writing into his page-turners. Most of Heller’s novels have Colorado connections, including “The Painter” and “The Dog Stars.” For an outdoorsy literary trip, try “The Guide” (Knopf), a national bestseller and action-packed mystery about a fishing guide who stirs up more than trout at an elite lodge outside Crested Butte.

Where to go: From Denver, take Interstate 70 to Glenwood Springs, then drop south to Crested Butte. You’ll get a real sense of the area’s natural beauty while crossing Kebler Pass – “One of the most beautiful passes in the world,” Heller claims, urging readers to plan a summer trip so they can stop for a hike off the road (check for closures). Look for hidden fishing holes as you walk. Heller won’t provide specifics – “We never do,” he says – but there are choice places to cast a line.

Where to stay: Quaint group lodging is available at Elk Mountain Lodge, a historic building built for miners in 1919. For a lavish escape, there’s Eleven Scarp Ridge Lodge, from the Eleven Experience group, drawing plenty of celebrities to its in-town resort.

What to do: Grab breakfast at the author’s favorite Crested Butte eatery, McGill’s, before heading south on 135, through ranching country, to reach Jacks Cabin Cutoff, which takes tourists to the Taylor River. Keep driving upstream until you find a public access pullout. Don’t fish on private land. Be sure to pack water, snacks and a list of book club questions: There will be plenty of time to chat about The Guide while wading. If you need a fishing license, or would be more comfortable with a guide, visit Dragonfly Anglers, one of several outfitters in the area.

Chat up locals in Redstone

In “Gilded Mountain” (Simon & Schuster), novelist Kate Manning’s beautiful prose brings to life the fictional town of Moonstone. The story picks up when Sylvie Pelletier leaves her family’s paltry mining cabin to take a summer job with the wealthy family that owns the town’s marble mine. Manning’s thoughtful juxtaposition of high country miners, freed slaves, and women leaves room for lively discussion.

Where to go: Redstone and Marble inspired Manning’s fictional plot. State Highway 82 – reach it via I-70 – gets you to Redstone Historic District, an intact example of an industrial company town. The setting is stunning, but Manning points out, “It’s the history that takes my breath away.”

Where to stay: When she visits town, Manning stays at the Crystal Dreams Bed and Breakfast, which is changing ownership this summer.

What to do: Redstone was the site of a coal mining camp founded by millionaire John Osgood. (Sound familiar?) See for yourself the discrepancies between workers’ cottages and Osgood’s 42-room estate, serving as inspiration for Elkhorne Manor, hosting, in its heyday, John D. Rockefeller and Teddy Roosevelt, among others. Tour Redstone Castle (reservations available online), then wander Redstone Park, home to the Redstone Historical Society, open daily May to October. Resuming in June, Redstone Walking Tours depart from the Redstone Inn on Thursdays at 11 a.m.

From Crystal Dreams B&B, it’s a short walk to Redstone Art Gallery. Drive 20 minutes south to reach Marble, home to a working quarry that supplied stone for the Lincoln Memorial. Check in at The Marble Hub, a non-profit visitor information center, for coffee, trail maps, historical tidbits, and free wi-fi (don’t count on cell service).

The hike to the marble quarry really fired up Manning’s imagination. “The road runs alongside Yule Creek,” she explains, describing “banks littered with marble chips.” Marble’s a tiny town with just a handful of year-round residents. “The one restaurant is all you need,” Manning says, referencing Slow Groovin BBQ. Known for its burgers and beer, it’s the place to “unwind in friendly company,” she adds.

Hike through history in Breckenridge

First there was mining, then came dredging – which brings Sandra Dallas’ complex characters to the fictional town of Middle Swan in the early 1900s in “Prayers for Sale” (St. Martin’s Griffin). The book is a bittersweet patchwork of yarns spun by 86-year-old Hennie Comfort, who has her own narrative to close before moving “down below” to bide her days in the Midwest with her daughter.

Where to go: Readers will recognize Middle Swan as the charming town of Breckenridge. From Denver, it’s about a 90-minute trip to Breck, via I-70 west to Exit 203 and onto Highway 9.

Where to stay: You’ll find quaint lodging at The Carlin, a Main Street tavern and inn where rooms have lovely touches, including outdoor patios and bay window seating just right for readers.

What to do: The welcome center houses an interactive display about the town’s mining past. The museum isn’t far from Ollie’s at the Dredge, a replica floating dredge boat on the Blue River. “The dredges were a thing of the past when I lived in Breckenridge in the 1960s,” says Dallas. “But,” she adds, “the rock piles were there, and so were the remnants of the dredge boats.”

See the impact of dredging firsthand while hiking Reiling Dredge Trail, just east of town, up French Gulch Road. Park at Reiling Dredge Trailhead, and follow markers through an aspen grove to a decaying dredge. New this year, on July 13 and Aug. 10, Breckenridge History is offering a 1.5-mile guided “hike through history” to Iowa Hill, a restored boardinghouse circa 1868.

Continue your historical research on Airport Road, at Breckenridge Distillery and Restaurant, where you can sample some “hooch” and tour the distillery. You might also want to check out the Gold Pan Saloon, purported to hold the longest liquor license west of the Mississippi.

Quilting is a big motif in Dallas’ novel, and there’s a gorgeous spread hanging at Summit County’s South Branch Library, courtesy of the Summit Quilters. Local arts organization Breck Create has a new resident, Kayla Powers, a fiber artist from Detroit. See her modern take on quilting during open studio hours, listed online at breckcreate.org.

Eat peaches in Paonia

Shelley Read’s emotional debut novel, “Go As A River” (Spiegel & Grau), opens on a peach farm in Iola, a legit underwater ghost town inundated in the 1960s to make way for the Blue Mesa Reservoir in Curecanti National Recreation Area. Drama ensues when the book’s 17-year-old protagonist, Victoria Nash, meets Wilson Moon, a drifter displaced from tribal land. Themes of courage, grit and friendship help temper all the hardship, and Tori finds her place in Paonia, a funky little wine town situated off the North Fork of the Gunnison River.

Read picked Paonia as a setting because, she says, “It’s a little town with big soul and, yes, exquisite peaches.”

Where to go: It will take about four hours of driving to reach this quaint Western Slope town, via Interstate 70 to Glenwood Springs, where you can catch Highway 82 west and Highway 133 south to Paonia.

Where to stay: Paonia’s Airbnb scene is strong, and yet it’s hard to beat a night at the 118-year-old Bross Hotel Bed & Breakfast, Delta County’s oldest inn, where owners Mike Yengling and Suzanne Tripp serve scratch-made breakfast.

What to do: Read recommends Paonia Bread Works for breakfast or lunch. “Other local treasures are Paonia Books, Blue Sage Center for the Arts, and KVNF community radio,” Read says, adding, “A late-summer u-pick is Big B’s Delicious Orchards, where you can fill a bushel basket then grab a hard cider, groove to live bluegrass, and pitch a tent for the night.” (OK, sold!)

Take a side trip to Montrose, 50 miles south of Paonia, to learn more about Colorado’s Indigenous history at the Ute Indian Museum, a History Colorado outpost with thought-provoking exhibitions. Montrose also claims the Museum of the Mountain West, a preserved ghost town off U.S. Route 50. Speaking of ghost towns, driving to the reservoir covering Iola will be tricky this summer due to the U.S. 50 bridge closure. Instead, try a 2.4-mile out-and-back hike along Pine Creek Trail, 45 minutes east of Montrose, on the far west side of Curecanti.

Don’t overlook the Eastern Plains

You might know Colorado native Kent Haruf (1943-2014) as the award-winning author of “Plainsong,” a national bestseller and National Book Award finalist. For a short, soul-stirring narrative, try Haruf’s sixth and final novel, “Our Souls at Night” (Vintage Contemporaries), set in fictional Holt, described as “a little dirt-blown town” outside Denver.

Addie Moore thrusts the book into motion when she comes to a neighbor with a pretty strange request. A beautiful love story unfolds beneath Haruf’s idiosyncratic writing, characterized by rich dialogue and lean prose. You won’t find flowery descriptions in Haruf’s work, but the author’s choice words are all you’ll need to get a sense of Colorado’s Eastern Plains, the sweeping, oft-overlooked shortgrass landscape stretched out from the Front Range to Kansas.

Where to go: Head east on I-70. That’s it.

Where to stay: If you’re looking to stay overnight, there are three options, the homiest being the Harvest Hotel. For slightly more premium digs, try Cobblestone Inn & Suites.

What to do: Natural wonders abound on the Eastern Plains, including the Pawnee Buttes and Jackson Lake State Park, and rumor has it Yuma – 140 miles directly east of Denver – inspired Haruf’s fictional setting. You’re not necessarily going to drive 2 1/2 hours (each way) for Yuma alone, but isn’t that the whole point? Haruf wrote about a quiet place where people lived and survived, and Yuma is, well, exactly that.

The cute farming community of about 3,500 residents is planted about 40 miles from the Nebraska and Kansas borders. “Almost everyone out here has a hand in agriculture,” a resident told me when I was passing through. There’s not a farmers market, but you’ll find fresh dairy and good coffee at the Farm House Market, and the restaurant at the town’s public 9-hole course, Indian Hills Golf Club, serves up quality beef burgers. Down the road, Tumbleweed Brewing and Wine Co. proves you don’t have to be in a big city to find great food.

History buffs might want to check out the Yuma Museum, located near the Yuma Community and Enrichment Center. The museum doesn’t keep regular hours, so if you want to see it, reach out to Monica in advance at 970-630-1660. The non-operation Lett Hotel, listed on the National Register of Historic Places, is worth seeing.

Yuma has over 20 acres of greenspace spread across five distinct parks, and a walk down Main Street takes you past some of the area’s oldest buildings. Take the time to revel in a brand of understated realness that influenced one of the state’s truly standout novelists.

Spend a perfect day in Lafayette

Colorado author Megan E. Freeman is racking up awards for “Alone” (Aladdin), a New York Times bestselling middle-grade novel about a girl who’s left behind when the fictional town of Millerville is suddenly evacuated for unknown reasons. Freeman’s fictional setting was strongly influenced by Lafayette, where Freeman was living when she wrote the book. “I named it Millerville because the real town of Lafayette was founded by Mary Miller, and I wanted to give locals a few Easter eggs,” Freeman explains.

In case you’re curious, Peakmont is Longmont, with its stellar views of Long’s Peak, and Lewiston is Louisville.

Where to go: Depending on the time of day, it’ll take you about 30 minutes from Denver, up I-25 and onto U.S. 36 west to Lafayette.

What to do: Families with tweens and teens can explore the book’s setting IRL, during a day trip to Old Town Lafayette, a charismatic Boulder County township. “There is so much to love about Lafayette,” Freeman says. But if you force her to list a few favorite destinations within walking distance of Old Town, she’ll recommend The Read Queen, a fabulous indie bookstore, as well as the Lafayette Public Library, Waneka Lake Park, and the family-owned/operated Lafayette Florist.

Work up an appetite walking, then try one of Freeman’s go-to restaurants: Panang Thai or Udon Kaisha, both locally owned and totally delicious. Eats and Sweets, a sandwich and ice cream café, abuts the splash pad at Festival Plaza. Art Nights Out are a fun family event held second Fridays, May through September, on South Public Road, between Emma and Cannon streets.

Find hope in the Black Forest

Ana Crespo started writing “Hello, Tree” (Little, Brown) in 2013, in the wake of the Black Forest Fire. “We live about 10 miles from the fire,” Crespo says, and while her family members and belongings were spared, “It was overwhelmingly sad,” she recalls. The fire claimed two lives, and more than 500 families lost homes.

With her then-four-year-old son in mind, Crespo began writing a fact-filled children’s book about the life cycle of a forest affected by wildfire. Covering a period of about 30 years, the fictional story is perfectly pitched to young readers with its emphasis on hope and “regrowth after disaster,” says the book’s illustrator, Dow Phumiruk. Both the author and illustrator are locals, and they visited the forest together during production. Phumiruk remembers charred remnants of trees, but she also noticed “colorful wildflowers in lush grass and healthy, new saplings.”

Where to stay: If you’re vying for parent of the year, book a night at Great Wolf Lodge, a waterpark/hotel where little bookworms can splash around until bedtime.

Where to go: After reading “Hello, Tree” with your children, let them see the forest’s regrowth on an easy day trip to Black Forest Regional Park, on the north end of Colorado Springs, 10 minutes west of I-25. The park’s a hit with kids of all ages given its large playground, sports fields and interconnected hiking trails weaving through thick strands of evergreens.

You’ll find additional playgrounds at John Venezia Community Park and Fox Run Regional Park, and for a quick bite before heading home, Crespo likes Pikes Peak Brewing Company in Monument. “Black Forest Brewing Company is nice, too,” Crespo says.

Jamie Siebrase is a Denver-based freelancer.