One of the most scenic destinations along Colorado's Front Range is Roxborough State Park, on the southwest edge of Metro Denver. Encompassing spectacular rock formations and varied habitat, it is a popular site for hiking, photography and wildlife watching. From C-470 in Littleton, exit on Santa Fe Drive, head south for 4 miles and turn west on Titan Road which eventually curves south, becoming Rampart Range Road; proceed another 2 miles to a firehouse near the hogback; the Park entrance road will be just east of this facility. Dogs are not permitted in this wildlife refuge.
Entering the Park, the visitor passes through the famous Dakota hogback, composed of Cretaceous sediments. West of the hogback is a broken chain of yellow-gray sandstone, the Lyons Formation, that dates from the Permian. Older yet are the salmon-red fins of the Fountain Formation, formed from the erosion of the Ancestral Rockies during the Pennsylvanian Period, some 300 million years ago. Finally, the western edge of the Park rises into the foothills of the Rockies, composed of Precambrian granite. Valleys between these ridges, now covered by Gambel oak thickets and yucca-studded grasslands, are underlain with softer sediments (primarily shale) that once separated the rock layers in a horizontal layer-cake. When the Rockies rose (70-60 million years ago), the cake was tilted upward (to the west) and subsequent erosion has produced the ridges of sandstone and valleys of shale.
By October, many of the summer birds have departed but visitors should still find scrub jays, magpies, canyon wrens, rufous-sided towhees, western meadowlarks and golden eagles. Mule deer are abundant at the Park; other mammals include rock squirrels, Colorado chipmunks, red fox, coyotes and the occasional mountain lion. Several trails loop through this scenic refuge and adventurous hikers can set their sights on Carpenter Peak (summit elevation 7175 feet), which commands a broad view of the Front Range foothills and Colorado Piedmont.
