Outdoor Living
Sixty-five miles north of Denver and thirty-five miles south of Cheyenne, Wyoming, Fort Collins is nestled against the foothills of the Rocky Mountains. It is the regional center for healthcare, culture, education and employment. With an average of three hundred days of sunshine per year, its residents enjoy extraordinary access both to natural and manmade outdoor amenities.
With an average summertime high temperature of eighty-five degrees Fahrenheit and an average wintertime high temperature of forty-two degrees Fahrenheit, it is easy to see why the people of Fort Collins have made such a high civic priority of their system of Parks and Trails. The city maintains four trails for hiking and biking and cross country skiing: a total off more than twenty miles of trails. In addition to numerous small, neighborhood playgrounds, the city parks department maintains four major recreation parks.
The oldest and most central of these is Fort Collins City Park. Located in a well-established neighborhood of enormous trees and well-maintained homes with a lot of historic character, City Park offers playgrounds and picnic pavilions, basketball courts, quiet fishing spots, a golf course, horseshoes, soccer, softball, baseball, football, tennis courts, a fitness course, a batting cage, and, in the summertime, paddle boat rentals on the lake, a miniature train that operates daily, access to the Old Town neighborhood on the trolley system, a pool for wading and play with a water slide and other water features. In the winter, the trees sometimes glaze with ice in the morning, making them look as if they were made of lead crystal when they sparkle in the sunlight. City Park in winter is a place for ice skating, sledding, and cross-country skiing.
Edora Park also offers picnic pavilions, playgrounds, basketball, fishing, horseshoes, softball, baseball, soccer, football, and a fitness course. One of the city’s hiking and biking trails starts at Edora Park. Other features of Edora Park include indoor swimming, a Frisbee gold course, a BMX track, a skate park, and an ice arena.
Rolland Moore park is offers another trailhead, a racquet complex, platform tennis courts and sand volleyball.
Lee Martinez Park belongs to the city as a result of the bequest of a farm on the northern edge of town. In addition to a trailhead and the usual park amenities, Lee Martinez Park is the home of The Farm. The Farm is a now twenty year old venue aimed intended mainly as an educational and enjoyable destination for children and their families. There are chickens, sheep, goats, pigs, ducks, geese, and cows to feed. Bags of oats are available for a small fee in the little shop in The Farm’s old silo. There is a hand operated water pump that children can use, a barn to explore, and, on summer weekends, ponies to ride. There is no admission fee and children are free to visit and revisit their favorite animals according to their own whims.
In addition to the city parks, there are several county, state, and national forests and parks in the area. The Arapaho and Roosevelt National Forest and Pawnee National Grassland Visitor Center is right in the midst of Fort Collins, on College Avenue. One of the most popular destination areas within national lands in Poudre Canyon, in Roosevelt National Forest. Many trails can be accessed from the canyon for hiking, biking, and horseback riding. The Poudre River, which runs through the Canyon, is one of the best trout streams in America, for both cutthroat and rainbow trout. Lory State Park is ten minutes west of Fort Collins and Horsetooth Reservoir and the adjacent Horsetooth Mountain Park (both named for the tooth-shaped granite formation at the top of – not surprisingly – Horsetooth Mountain. This stone formation is something of an informal symbol of the Fort Collins area.) border the city limits of Fort Collins and are managed by Larimer County Parks and Open Lands.