Colorado Wildernesses

Indian Peaks Wilderness
OBJECTID_1 | 7
Website | https://wilderness.net/visit-wilderness/?ID=261
Wilderness | Indian Peaks Wilderness
State | CO
Comment | Has adjacent polygons
Date of Last Update | 3/30/2019
WID | 261
Abbreviated Name | Indian_Peaks
Image | https://wilderness.net/images/NWPS/indian_peaks.jpg
Acreage | 2959
Description | The Indian Peaks Wilderness is located primarily within the Arapaho and Roosevelt National Forest. Many of the peaks within the area were named for American Indian tribes of the west. Managed primarily...
Agency | NPS
joinerID | 261NPS
Designated | 1980
ORIG_FID | 14435

Rocky Mountain National Park Wilderness
OBJECTID_1 | 8
Website | https://wilderness.net/visit-wilderness/?ID=745
Wilderness | Rocky Mountain National Park Wilderness
State | CO
Comment | Has adjacent polygons
Date of Last Update | 3/30/2019
WID | 745
Abbreviated Name | Rocky_Mountain
Image |
Acreage | 249126
Description | Following its initial recommendation for Wilderness protection, the stunning wild lands of Rocky Mountain National Park Wilderness sat in limbo for 35 years before finally being designated. This living...
Agency | NPS
joinerID | 745NPS
Designated | 2009
ORIG_FID | 14692

Comanche Peak Wilderness
OBJECTID_1 | 28
Website | https://wilderness.net/visit-wilderness/?ID=133
Wilderness | Comanche Peak Wilderness
State | CO
Comment | Has adjacent polygons
Date of Last Update | 2/26/2019
WID | 133
Abbreviated Name | Comanche_Peak
Image | https://wilderness.net/images/NWPS/Comanche_Peak.jpg
Acreage | 68025
Description | The 70 miles of trails that wind through this Wilderness begin flanked in ponderosa pine and aspen, and then pass through a thick forest of lodgepole and limber pine. From the trails, the Wilderness appears...
Agency | FS
joinerID | 133FS
Designated | 1980
ORIG_FID | 28412

Neota Wilderness
Wilderness | Neota Wilderness
Abbreviated Name | Neota
Image | https://wilderness.net/images/NWPS/Neota.jpg
Description | Bordering Rocky Mountain National Park on the south and surrounded by other Wilderness areas, little Neota actually stands in a huge expanse of virtually roadless country. With elevations ranging between...
Agency | FS
joinerID | 405FS

Never Summer Wilderness
Wilderness | Never Summer Wilderness
Abbreviated Name | Never_Summer
Image | https://wilderness.net/images/NWPS/NeverSummer.jpg
Description | As its name suggests, Never Summer Wilderness gets hit with large amounts of rain and snow that collect on its storm-wracked peaks, which offer relatively gentle terrain and bear names that hint at their...
Agency | FS
joinerID | 406FS

Mesa Verde Wilderness
Wilderness | Mesa Verde Wilderness
Comment | <Null>
Abbreviated Name | Mesa_Verde
Image | https://wilderness.net/images/NWPS/MesaVerde.jpg
Description | About 1,400 years ago, the Ancestral Pueblo people began their occupation of Mesa Verde. Sandstone dwellings deep within the shady overhangs of Mesa Verde's cliffs were not constructed and occupied until...
Agency | NPS
joinerID | 352NPS

Great Sand Dunes Wilderness
Wilderness | Great Sand Dunes Wilderness
Abbreviated Name | Great_Sand_Dunes
Image | https://wilderness.net/images/NWPS/GreatSandDunes.jpg
Description | For century after century, streams, creeks, melting snows, and flash floods brought bits of rock that became sand grains out of the mountains and to the valley floor. When sand lay exposed, southwesterly...

Sangre de Cristo Wilderness
Wilderness | Sangre de Cristo Wilderness
Abbreviated Name | Sangre_de_Cristo
Image | https://wilderness.net/images/NWPS/SangreDeCristo.jpg
Description | Sangre de Cristo is Spanish for "Blood of Christ," but no one is quite sure why the region was given this name. Was it because of the bloody hues washing the slopes at sunset, or the cry of the dying priest...

Gunnison Gorge Wilderness
Wilderness | Gunnison Gorge Wilderness
Abbreviated Name | Gunnison_Gorge
Image | https://wilderness.net/images/NWPS/GunnisonGorge.jpg
Description | The Gunnison Gorge Wilderness is located in the heart of the Gunnison Gorge National Conservation Area (NCA) within the double canyon of the Gunnison River. Central to this area is the Gunnison River...
Agency | BLM
joinerID | 227BLM

Black Canyon of the Gunnison Wilderness
Wilderness | Black Canyon of the Gunnison Wilderness
Comment | <Null>
Abbreviated Name | Black_Canyon_of_the_Gunnison
Image |
Description | Two billion years ago, Precambrian gneiss (a coarse-grained, granite-like metamorphic rock that's extremely strong and resistant to erosion) formed the core of this region. In what is now known as the...

Indian Peaks Wilderness
Wilderness | Indian Peaks Wilderness
Abbreviated Name | Indian_Peaks
Image | https://wilderness.net/images/NWPS/indian_peaks.jpg
Description | The Indian Peaks Wilderness is located primarily within the Arapaho and Roosevelt National Forest. Many of the peaks within the area were named for American Indian tribes of the west. Managed primarily...

Mount Massive Wilderness
Wilderness | Mount Massive Wilderness
Abbreviated Name | Mount_Massive
Image | https://wilderness.net/images/NWPS/MountMassive.jpg
Description | Mount Massive (14,421 feet), Colorado's second highest peak, and other mountains of the Sawatch Range have two distinctive characteristics: great height, and a huge, sloping bulk that makes them relatively...
Agency | FWS
joinerID | 377FWS

Mount Massive Wilderness
Wilderness | Mount Massive Wilderness
Abbreviated Name | Mount_Massive
Image | https://wilderness.net/images/NWPS/MountMassive.jpg
Description | Mount Massive (14,421 feet), Colorado's second highest peak, and other mountains of the Sawatch Range have two distinctive characteristics: great height, and a huge, sloping bulk that makes them relatively...

Powderhorn Wilderness
Wilderness | Powderhorn Wilderness
Abbreviated Name | Powderhorn
Image | https://wilderness.net/images/NWPS/powderhorn.jpg
Description | In this Wilderness, the northern verge of the San Juan Mountains reaches out into the Gunnison Basin, a dry land of sagebrush meadows dotted with fish-filled lakes, including Powderhorn Lakes. Scoured...

Powderhorn Wilderness
Wilderness | Powderhorn Wilderness
Abbreviated Name | Powderhorn
Image | https://wilderness.net/images/NWPS/powderhorn.jpg
Description | In this Wilderness, the northern verge of the San Juan Mountains reaches out into the Gunnison Basin, a dry land of sagebrush meadows dotted with fish-filled lakes, including Powderhorn Lakes. Scoured...
Agency | BLM
joinerID | 473BLM

Uncompahgre Wilderness
Wilderness | Uncompahgre Wilderness
Abbreviated Name | Uncompahgre
Image | https://wilderness.net/images/NWPS/Uncompahgre.jpg
Description | Uncompahgre Wilderness gets its name from a Ute Indian word meaning, in one translation, "dirty water". This Wilderness is located in the north-central region of the San Juan Mountains in Colorado. There...
Agency | BLM
joinerID | 618BLM

Uncompahgre Wilderness
Wilderness | Uncompahgre Wilderness
Abbreviated Name | Uncompahgre
Image | https://wilderness.net/images/NWPS/Uncompahgre.jpg
Description | Uncompahgre Wilderness gets its name from a Ute Indian word meaning, in one translation, "dirty water". This Wilderness is located in the north-central region of the San Juan Mountains in Colorado. There...

Dominguez Canyon Wilderness
Wilderness | Dominguez Canyon Wilderness
Comment | <Null>
Abbreviated Name | Dominguez_Canyon
Image | https://wilderness.net/images/NWPS/DominguezCanyon.jpg
Description | The Dominguez Canyon Wilderness displays an array of ecosystems, ranging from upper Sonoran piñon-juniper desert along the Gunnison River, to Douglas-fir and ponderosa pine to aspen at higher elevations....

Black Ridge Canyons Wilderness
Wilderness | Black Ridge Canyons Wilderness
State | CO/UT
Abbreviated Name | Black_Ridge_Canyons
Image | https://wilderness.net/images/NWPS/BlackRidgeCanyons.jpg
Description | Black Ridge Canyons Wilderness, on the northwest flank of the Uncompahgre Plateau, is characterized by the high, east-west trending Black Ridge which is dissected by seven major red rock canyon systems...

Buffalo Peaks Wilderness
Wilderness | Buffalo Peaks Wilderness
Abbreviated Name | Buffalo_Peaks
Image | https://wilderness.net/images/NWPS/BuffaloPeaks.jpg
Description | Beaver, elk, mule deer, black bears, mountain lions and one of Colorado's largest herds of bighorn sheep call the Buffalo Peaks Wilderness home, but human visitors are relatively few, preferring the nearby...

Byers Peak Wilderness
Wilderness | Byers Peak Wilderness
Abbreviated Name | Byers_Peak
Image | https://wilderness.net/images/NWPS/ByersPeak.jpg
Description | Standing at 12,804 feet, Byers Peak overlooks a Wilderness rendered unique by the fact that about one half of the area consists of alpine tundra, the land above the tree line. Most of the entire Byers...

Cache La Poudre Wilderness
Wilderness | Cache La Poudre Wilderness
Abbreviated Name | Cache_La_Poudre
Image | https://wilderness.net/images/NWPS/Cache_la_Poudre.jpg
Description | Nine miles of the Little South Fork of the Cache la Poudre River, a part of Colorado's only designated Wild and Scenic River drainage, flow through Cache la Poudre Wilderness. The water has cut a deep...

Collegiate Peaks Wilderness
Wilderness | Collegiate Peaks Wilderness
Abbreviated Name | Collegiate_Peaks
Image | https://wilderness.net/images/NWPS/collegiate_peaks.jpg
Description | With eight "fourteeners" (peaks exceeding 14,000 feet in elevation), Collegiate Peaks Wilderness probably possesses the highest average elevation of any Wilderness in the Lower 48. You can climb Mounts...

Eagles Nest Wilderness
Wilderness | Eagles Nest Wilderness
Abbreviated Name | Eagles_Nest
Image | https://wilderness.net/images/NWPS/EaglesNest.jpg
Description | Heavy snow accumulates on the heights of Eagles Nest Wilderness in the Gore Range, providing a major contribution to the waters of the Colorado River. Melting snow in spring plunges from the heights to...

Flat Tops Wilderness
Wilderness | Flat Tops Wilderness
Abbreviated Name | Flat_Tops
Image | https://wilderness.net/images/NWPS/FlatTops.jpg
Description | Arthur Carhart's 1919 visit to Trappers Lake in the verdant embrace of the Flat Tops prompted him to be the first U.S. Forest Service official to initiate a plea for Wilderness preservation. No wonder...

Fossil Ridge Wilderness
Wilderness | Fossil Ridge Wilderness
Abbreviated Name | Fossil_Ridge
Image | https://wilderness.net/images/NWPS/FossilRidge.jpg
Description | Here is a small but almost perfect mountain kingdom, with raw granite towering above several beautiful shallow lakes and long valleys carved by ancient glaciers and replete with pine, spruce, fir, and...

Greenhorn Mountain Wilderness
Wilderness | Greenhorn Mountain Wilderness
Abbreviated Name | Greenhorn_Mountain
Image | https://wilderness.net/images/NWPS/GreenhornMountain.jpg
Description | Soaring dramatically from the plains of Colorado, Greenhorn Mountain rises from 7,600 to 12,347 feet in the center of the northern section. Its summit is the highest point in the Wilderness, and nowhere...

Hermosa Creek Wilderness
Wilderness | Hermosa Creek Wilderness
Abbreviated Name | Hermosa_Creek
Image | https://wilderness.net/images/NWPS/HermosaCreek.jpg
Description | Hermosa's crimson-colored red shale and sandstone formation define the landscape as well as it being home to the Colorado cutthroat trout, peregrine falcon and large herds of elk. The mid-elevation wilderness...

Holy Cross Wilderness
Wilderness | Holy Cross Wilderness
Abbreviated Name | Holy_Cross
Image | https://wilderness.net/images/NWPS/HolyCross.jpg
Description | The Holy Cross Wilderness is characterized by rugged ridgelines and glacier-carved valleys complete with spruce-fir forests, cascading streams and dozens of lakes. The wilderness is named after Mount of...

Hunter-Fryingpan Wilderness
Wilderness | Hunter-Fryingpan Wilderness
Abbreviated Name | Hunter_Fryingpan
Image | https://wilderness.net/images/NWPS/hunter-fryingpan.jpg
Description | Snuggled in between the more spectacular Colorado Wildernesses of Holy Cross on the north, Maroon Bells-Snowmass on the west, and Collegiate Peaks on the south, Hunter-Fryingpan lies all but forgotten....

James Peak Wilderness
Wilderness | James Peak Wilderness
Abbreviated Name | James_Peak
Image | https://wilderness.net/images/NWPS/jamespeak.jpg
Description | The James Peak Wilderness encompasses 14,000 acres on the east side of the Continental Divide in Boulder, Gilpin, and Clear Creek Counties of Colorado. The area is named after its most prominent peak...

Mount Zirkel Wilderness
Wilderness | Mount Zirkel Wilderness
Abbreviated Name | Mount_Zirkel
Image | https://wilderness.net/images/NWPS/MountZirkel.jpg
Description | The Mount Zirkel Wilderness lies within the Routt National Forest in northwestern Colorado. It was one of the original areas protected under the 1964 Wilderness Act and has since been expanded twice to...

Mount Evans Wilderness
Wilderness | Mount Evans Wilderness
Abbreviated Name | Mount_Evans
Image | https://wilderness.net/images/NWPS/MountEvans.jpg
Description | Mount Evans Wilderness is located approximately 40 miles west of Denver. The Mt. Evans Scenic Byway ascends a non-wilderness corridor into the center of the Wilderness. The road, two 14,000 foot peaks...

Mount Sneffels Wilderness
Wilderness | Mount Sneffels Wilderness
Abbreviated Name | Mount_Sneffels
Image | https://wilderness.net/images/NWPS/MountSneffels.jpg
Description | The United States Congress designated the Mount Sneffels Wilderness in 1980 and it now has a total of 16,566 acres. Mount Sneffels, a 14,150-foot intrusion of igneous rock on the eastern verge of this...

Lizard Head Wilderness
Wilderness | Lizard Head Wilderness
Abbreviated Name | Lizard_Head
Image | https://wilderness.net/images/NWPS/LizardHead.jpg
Description | Lizard Head Peak (13,113 feet), stands spire-like on the eastern side of the Lizard Head Wilderness shadowed by 14,000-foot peaks, Mount Wilson and Wilson Peak. Not far to the west, you'll find El Diente...

Lost Creek Wilderness
Wilderness | Lost Creek Wilderness
Abbreviated Name | Lost_Creek
Image | https://wilderness.net/images/NWPS/LostCreek.jpg
Description | Lost Creek Wilderness is located approximately 60 miles southwest of Denver. Unlike most of Colorado's jagged Wilderness profiles, Lost Creek is a land of fascinating rounded granite domes and knobs, split...

Maroon Bells-Snowmass Wilderness
Wilderness | Maroon Bells-Snowmass Wilderness
Abbreviated Name | Maroon_Bells_Snowmass
Image | https://wilderness.net/images/NWPS/maroonbells-snowmass.jpg
Description | Colorado's fourth largest Wilderness exemplifies Rocky Mountain splendor: 100 miles of trail lead over nine passes above 12,000 feet, vast regions lie above the tree line, and long glacial valleys point...

Rawah Wilderness
Wilderness | Rawah Wilderness
Abbreviated Name | Rawah
Image | https://wilderness.net/images/NWPS/Rawah.jpg
Description | Just before the Front Range of the Colorado Rockies fades into Wyoming's Medicine Bow Mountains, the Rawah Wilderness protects a scenic high country of U-shaped glacier-carved valleys and peaks reaching...

Platte River Wilderness
Wilderness | Platte River Wilderness
State | CO/WY
Abbreviated Name | Platte_River
Image | https://wilderness.net/images/NWPS/PlatteRiver.jpg
Description | About 36 square miles of forested land lying primarily north and east of the North Platte River is included in this Wyoming Wilderness, with a small segment in Colorado's Routt National Forest. On the...

Ptarmigan Peak Wilderness
Wilderness | Ptarmigan Peak Wilderness
Abbreviated Name | Ptarmigan_Peak
Image | https://wilderness.net/images/NWPS/PtarmiganPeak.jpg
Description | The Williams Fork Mountains leap up and away into Ptarmigan Peak Wilderness from just below the western entrance to the Eisenhower Tunnel on Interstate 70, virtually unnoticed in winter as skiers rush...

Raggeds Wilderness
Wilderness | Raggeds Wilderness
Abbreviated Name | Raggeds
Image | https://wilderness.net/images/NWPS/Raggeds.jpg
Description | Prominent rocky slopes striking skyward to a serrated ridge give Raggeds Wilderness its well-deserved name. Ragged Mountain in the northern half rises to 12,094 feet. Anthracite Creek passes through the...

Vasquez Peak Wilderness
Wilderness | Vasquez Peak Wilderness
Abbreviated Name | Vasquez_Peak
Image | https://wilderness.net/images/NWPS/VasquezPeak.jpg
Description | Along the southern boundary of the relatively small Vasquez Peak Wilderness and over Vasquez Peak itself, you'll find that seven miles of the Continental Divide National Scenic Trail offer two distinct...

Sarvis Creek Wilderness
Wilderness | Sarvis Creek Wilderness
Abbreviated Name | Sarvis_Creek
Image | https://wilderness.net/images/NWPS/SarvisCreek.jpg
Description | Old-timers sometimes pronounced "sarvis" as "service," and the Sarvis Timber Company once logged near here, lending its name to this Wilderness. Opening occasionally at islands of rock or in meadows of...

South San Juan Wilderness
Wilderness | South San Juan Wilderness
Abbreviated Name | South_San_Juan
Image | https://wilderness.net/images/NWPS/south_sj.jpg
Description | Ages of volcanic activity followed by the infinitely patient carving of glaciers left the rough, imposing terrain of the remote South San Juan Wilderness, an area typified by steep slopes above broad U-shaped...

Spanish Peaks Wilderness
Wilderness | Spanish Peaks Wilderness
Abbreviated Name | Spanish_Peaks
Image | https://wilderness.net/images/NWPS/SpanishPeaks.jpg
Description | Los Cumbres Espanolos, the Spanish Peaks, are prominent landmarks along the eastern front of the southern Rockies. Their snow-capped summits, rising 7000 feet above the arid plains, made the "Double Mountain"...

Weminuche Wilderness
Wilderness | Weminuche Wilderness
Abbreviated Name | Weminuche
Image | https://wilderness.net/images/NWPS/Weminuche.jpg
Description | The Weminuche Wilderness was designated in 1975, and was expanded to its current size by the Colorado Wilderness Acts of 1980 and 1993. It is the largest designated Wilderness in Colorado. The Weminuche...

West Elk Wilderness
Wilderness | West Elk Wilderness
Abbreviated Name | West_Elk
Image | https://wilderness.net/images/NWPS/WestElk.jpg
Description | The West Elk's most attractive offering may be a large and untamed area. You'll find many mountain passes leading to secluded and seldom-seen valleys filled with beaver ponds and lined with trembling aspen...

La Garita Wilderness
Wilderness | La Garita Wilderness
Abbreviated Name | La_Garita
Image | https://wilderness.net/images/NWPS/lagarita.jpg
Description | La Garita means "the lookout" in Spanish, and this Wilderness amply deserves the name. From the summit of this Wilderness's single fourteener (14,014-foot San Luis Peak), climbers can gaze across the upper...