We spent a good part of the day at Walker Ranch on Sunday. There's a lot you can do here: hike with your dogs, run, fish, ride horses and enjoy the wild flowers. The area is nice during the week when it's not so congested. But the weather was perfect Sunday so everyone on the Front Range was out enjoying a day off before the work week starts again.
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Trax and Griffith walk their bikes up the steep stairs.
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Elevation Map from Trail Central
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A classic trail with a lot of history. From the web: The historic Walker Ranch was one of the largest cattle ranches in this region of Colorado. Settler James Walker traveled from Missouri to Boulder in 1869. Suffering from a life-threatening illness and carrying only $12 in his pocket, James came to Colorado on the advice of his physician. Walker’s health dramatically improved in Colorado’s high, dry climate. In 1882, he and his wife Phoebe filed a homestead claim to 160 acres in an open meadow with a flowing year-round spring. After first building a large barn and blacksmith shop to care for his livestock, James moved his wife and young son William into the family’s new ranch house by 1883. Designed for a self-sufficient lifestyle, the homestead was completed with a rootcellar, granary, smokehouse, springhouse, chicken and turkey houses, a wagon barn, a corn storage and pig barn, and various corrals and fenced pastures. Through ingenious trades, contracts, and sales maneuvers the family expanded the ranch. When the Walker family finally sold the property in 1959, it was over 6,000 acres. It went through a succession of owners until the county began a leasepurchase in 1976. Walker Ranch is listed on the National Register of Historic Places as a cultural landscape due to the integrity of its preserved fields, forests, and historic structures.
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