Hiking in Castlewood Canyon

We took advantage of spring-like weather today to check out Castlewood Canyon State Park (CCSP) near Frankstown. With plenty of sunshine and temps reaching up to 70F, it felt great to shed our jackets and go exploring ... and get some fun exercise to boot.

CCSP is just off CO-83, between Colorado Springs and Denver ... about 32 miles from our house. We’d noticed it when we drove that way as an alternate to I-25. I’d even considered camping there in the RV. Turns out, however, that there is no camping at this state park. So, we planned a day trip in early October instead. Alas, the weather did not cooperate then. Our second try was the charm today.

The park has an interesting geology. The canyon that is within the park boundaries was created by Cherry Creek cutting down into the bedrock, leaving behind the well-cemented Castle Rock Conglomerate. Interestingly, this creek flows north ... thanks to the rise of the Palmer Divide millions of years ago.

A piece of Colorado history is also protected by this park — the ruins of the Castlewood Dam. Built across Cherry Creek in 1890 to store water for irrigation, the dam gave way in 1933. The deluge of resulting water traveled down Cherry Creek, flooding farmlands, sending a 15-foot high wave into Denver, and killing two people.

At the visitor center, reading one of the info panels about the dam disaster, I couldn’t help but think of mankind’s hubris ... not unlike the way the Titanic was billed as “unsinkable.” We all know how that ended. Here’s the statement from A.M. Wells, Design Engineer of Castlewood Dam: “The Castlewood Dam will never in the life of any person now living or in generations to come, break to any extent that it will do any great damage either to itself or to others …” — in a letter to the Denver Times, May 2, 1900. Just over 30 years later ... poof, the dam collapsed.

CCSP has two sections ... east and west. There is no road connection between the two from within the park. The visitor center is in the east area, so we opted to hike there. After a quick look-see from the Bridge Canyon Overlook, we drove to the Canyon Point parking lot at the end of the road.

The trails from here are all in-out, but it is possible to kludge together a loop by combining several of them. We started off on Lake Gulch — which gave us a chance to see the ranchlands that were flooded to create a reservoir after the Castlewood Dam was built. Once the dam broke and the waters emptied out, the area became ranchlands again.

Crossing over a “boulder bridge,” we next connected to the Dam Trail, which took us to see the remnants of the dam. Then, we re-traced our steps to get to the Inner Canyon Trail. The trail was narrow and strewn with rocks and boulders. We had great fun scrambling around and enjoying the delightful day before taking the steep stairs at the end of the trail to get back up to the parking lot.

The CCSP trail map describes these three trails as moderate. Despite the stairs we had to walk up at the end of our hike, and the boulder scrambling along the way, I’d say all three are actually easy as long as you’re in reasonable shape. The direction in which we hiked worked in our favor. Had we done it in reverse, the last segment would have been all uphill ... not a bad grade, but uphill nonetheless.

Will we return to Castlewood Canyon to hike the other trails? I’m not sure. We have more interesting trails far closer to us. That said, the landscape would be a lot greener in the spring, so perhaps we will go back then.

You can see more photos from today’s hike in my online gallery ... https://eenusa.smugmug.com/North-America-US-Can…Lue lisää