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Red Mountain Open Space

On June 22, 2006, the Society took a tour of the newly acquired (December 2004) Red Mountain Open Space.  From the pictures you will see the appropriateness of the name; colorful sandstone, limestone and shale ridges are scattered throughout the ranch.  The landscape is rolling foothills and rocky outcrops interspersed with ponderosa and juniper woodlands.  The website is http://www.co.larimer.co.us/openlands/os_red_mountain.htm

Larimer County Parks and Open Space acquired the former ranch land for approximately $9,700,800 with a GOCO (Great Outdoors Colorado , lottery money) grant for 80% of the cost.  The 13,500 acres of land is north of the City of Fort Collins with a northern boundary on the Wyoming border.  It is adjacent to the City-owned Soapstone Open Space.  With the two entities working together, approximately 5,000 acres of the northern portion of the former ranch is envisioned to be open for public use and connected to the City property producing 30 miles of trails.  

This acquisition is part of Laramie Foothills Mountains to Plains Partnership Project which aims to protect 55,400 acres.  Other partners include the Nature Conservancy, the Legacy Land Trust and nearby landowners. The ecological purpose of the acquisitions is to maintain migratory pathways across important ecological zones.  Protected animals include golden eagles, red-tailed hawks, coyote, elk, mule deer, pronghorn, mountain lion, bobcat, bear, and a diversity of shrub land, grassland and riparian birds.  The perennial Boxelder Creek and the intermittent Sand Creek bisect the ranch. 

Photos from the tour

 This the storm control dam for the Boxelder Creek.

This was our mode of transportation, two Larimer County vans.

This appears to be a teepee ring the group is studying.

Folsom points – Indian arrowheads – were found in this area.

This is still cattle country and management of water holes is important to the ecological health of the area.

View to the north, red sandstone.

A close up of the previous view

A view to the east

Judd rode "shotgun" (right front passenger side) because he was willing to open the several gates during the trip. 

This put him in the position to have a good view of plants along side the road, which included Dalmatian toadflax (below) which is a designated Noxious Weed in the State of Colorado and Larimer County .   Noxious weeds are required by law to be managed to reduce their spread, and elimination, if possible.  

A past president of the North Fork Weed Coop and Chair of the Glacier View Meadows Ecology Committee, Judd could not resist pointing out the presence of these very pretty but undesirable weeds; they were quite prevalent along the roads.  He suggested to the driver, a member of Larimer County Parks and Open Space, that it was such a privilege to be able take a tour of this land that the County should consider asking for volunteers to spend some time eradicating the plants.   

The next several pictures show that the County adopted this suggestion. One year later, June 2007, the County organized a crew of volunteers to tackle the problem.

Volunteers pulled plants and cut off flowers, filling plastic bags which in this picture are being thrown into a big dump truck, which we completely filled.

This picture is a close up of an erosion area which is very substantially filled with toadflax; do you see the yellow flower?

Here a crew is beginning to work its way up the draw.  Toadflax was found predominately along the roads, the washes, and in the draws witch tended towards erosion and more retained water.