The 2025 SLASH season is upon us. From May 16th to October 26th, four SLASH collection sites will be open for business , mostly on Thursdays thru Sundays, 9AM to 4PM, unless otherwise posted. You should plan to arrive no later than 30 minutes prior to closing. Read more
In memory of our beloved Board member Bette Seeland, we’re republishing a few of the articles in which she was a major contributor…this is one of them.
Have you ever wondered how many miles of trails are included in our Jeffco Open Space parks? Can you guess how many acres have been preserved? or how much land is under direct management by JCOS? Here’s the place to find out…the Jefferson County Open Space Dashboard.
In memory of our beloved Board member Bette Seeland, we’re republishing a few of the articles in which she was a major contributor…this is one of them.
Dear Miss Mountain Manners: When I got to my favorite Jeffco Open Space Park for a hike, the parking lot was full. What should I do? Feeling Shutout
Dear Shutout: You could walk close to home instead of driving to a park. Do not park on the road shoulder leading to the park. Download, sign up, then check the LotSpot parking lot app to find a park not currently overcrowded. Come at a time when the park is less crowded such as weekdays, before 9 am or after 3 pm.
Westminster social trail heading west across Indiana Street into Rocky Flats.
By Vicky Gits
Jeffco Open Space Advisory Board unanimously approved an agreement resolving a contract dispute between Open Space and the City of Westminster over completing a 0.4-mile-long trail connection between the Rocky Flats National Wildlife Refuge and Westminster Hills Open Space. The advisory board endorsed the deal in an 8-0 vote in a regular meeting on March 6. Read more
2025 Conservation Awards Ceremony – Tom Hoby, Opening Ceremony, January 30, 2025. Article by Vicky Gits, photo courtesy of Michelle Poolet
Volunteers are the heartbeat of the Jefferson County Open Space system. In 2024, 6,038 individuals logged 57,000 working hours. They completed 549 projects, preserved 291 acres and created 17 miles of new trails.
All this effort represented the equivalent of 31 full-time workers, said Tom Hoby, executive director, at the 2025 Conservation Awards ceremony Jan. 30 at the Lakewood Cultural Center. Read more
A few years ago, Shaun Howard, who was the Jeffco Open Space Ranger lead at that time, wrote this post to help all Open Space Park visitors understand a little more about how to enjoy winter activities in the Parks. It’s time to republish as a reminder.
Our parks are “primitive” parks. Don’t expect the trails to be groomed for you. Make sure you have micro-spikes with you, just in case you need them. Be prepared for any type of weather, especially as you gain in elevation. Know before you go.
Temps have dropped and winter winds lick the landscape of the Jeffco Parks. Although the winter season has arrived, the parks are still great places to visit. Read on for essential winter safety tips.
Typical outcrop of 1.4 billion year old granite in Alderfer/Three Sisters Park.
This article was initially published in 2014. Between then and now, the link to the full document was lost. Thankfully, we’ve just been able to recover a copy of the document, thanks to generous efforts by the USGS. We’ve embedded the document in our own library, for safekeeping. This repost will lead you to the full story of the geologic history of Jeffco’s Open Space Parks, as they were in 2014.
Jefferson County straddles one of the most conspicuous and important geographic and geologic boundaries in western North America, the eastern flank of the Rocky Mountains. To the east you can travel 1,100 miles across Great Plains and Central Lowlands before you sight the western foothills of the Appalachians. If you travel in the other direction you will cross or skirt mountain range after mountain range until you sight the Coast Range near San Francisco, more than 900 miles to the west. Many of these mountains have different ages and origins than the Colorado mountains, but they are all part of the great mountain belt called the North American Cordillera that extends along the western edge of the continent from Alaska through Mexico. Read more
By Vicky Gits and Bette Seeland
Karlin is credited with launching PLAN Jeffco and the open space movement in 1971 from her Lakewood living room along with a gathering of members of the League of Women Voters and others.
Without the vision and genius of Carol Karlin the Jefferson County Open Space system might never have become reality.
Thanks to Karlin’s idea of scooping up cheap acreage for posterity, the Front Range enjoys a generous portfolio of trails and parks owned and maintained in perpetuity by the residents of and visitors to Jefferson County who pay a half-cent sales tax.
This explains why there is a charming outdoor seating nook framed in pinon and boulders in a distant corner of Elk Meadow Park in Evergreen. Established sometime around 2008, the site is marked with the sign that says, “Carol Karlin Overlook.” Read more
Wildfires in the mountain west have become less frequent but more intense.
Recently, the Denver Gazette published a short article on current research comparing historical versus contemporary wildfires in the America Southwest, with (to this reader) some rather surprising results.
The areas investigated in this study were primarily dry conifer forests dominated by Ponderosa pine and Douglas fir, very similar to our own forests in the Jeffco Front Range. Prior to 1880, wildfires used to sweep through these forests every 10 to 12 years. These were almost entirely low-to-moderate intensity fires that cleared out undergrowth and forest duff, burning off the lower limbs of the trees, but not devastating enough to kill the trees themselves. Typically, these low-intensity burns involved smaller areas, 5 to 250 acres. Despite the small size of these wildfires, the frequency and style of these fires were able to maintain forest health, even during prolonged periods of drought, when fires were started by lightning strikes and/or Indigenous forest stewardship events. Read more
It’s that time again, when — every few years — Jeffco Open Space elicits feedback from the public on issues like planning for the parks, and improving and maintaining not just the Open Space Parks, but also shared parks, trails and open spaces. Here’s your chance to voice an opinion on our Jeffco Open Space Parks. The survey will be open for just a short time, so go to this page and start engaging!
