Nearly 1,900 stream-access acres in South Park to become new Colorado state wildlife area

There are four national ‘parks’ within the state of Colorado – Rocky Mountain, Black Canyon of the Gunnison, Great Sand Dunes, and Mesa Verde.

There’s an Estes Park, and Allenspark, a Winter Park, and a Park County, along with 42 state parks and a Denver neighborhood called Park Hill.

You’re well aware of South Park, which is based in Colorado, and a few of you might even know of the actual South Park. If you’re one of those, then you likely know of North Park and Middle Park, too.

The way the term ‘park’ is lobbed around the mountains of Colorado is different than in any other part of the country, as it carries meaning beyond just that of a square piece of grass with a couple of soccer goals and a baseball diamond. It’s not just the national or state ‘parks,’ either – ‘park’ here refers to the large, upland valleys that are surrounded on all sides by mountains, the big meadows or ‘high plains’ that managed to find themselves within the ranges of the Rocky Mountains.

The drive to Steamboat Springs from the Denver area takes you right through Middle Park, where the small town of Kremmling sits in the flatlands along the Blue River and Colorado River while flanked by the Gore Range to its west, the Front Range to its east, and the Rabbit Ears Range to its north. On the other side of the Rabbit Ears Range sits North Park, a mostly empty basin where Walden sits alongside the North Platte while flanked by the Park Range to the west and Medicine Bow Mountains to the east.

If you’ve ever rounded the bend on US-285 south and began the descent down Kenosha Pass, you’ve seen the skies part and South Park revealed in all its glory. At some 640,000 acres (or roughly 1,000 square miles), it’s larger than even the Weminuche Wilderness (at over 499,000 acres it’s the largest wilderness in Colorado). It sits at nearly 10,000 feet above sea level, and it’s surrounded by the Front Range to the east, the Sawatch Range to the west, and spills down to the Sangre de Cristo Mountains to its south.

It’s a vast land that’s mostly dedicated to ranches and farms these days, with cattle and the cultivation of protein-rich short-stem hay the biggest products of the land. That’s how it’s been for the better part of a century and a half since gold was first discovered in the area in 1859, a discovery that prompted a rush on the land and the eventual seizure of its use from the native Ute tribe and the native Arapaho who would hunt buffalo in the open valley.

South Park also houses the South Platte River, whose headwaters form in the Mosquito Range – a range that includes Quandary Peak (14,272 feet) and the Decalibron and which serves as the northwest boundary of the park itself. The South Platte initially flows southeast before its confluence with the Middle Fork outside Hartsel, then turns north and flows through Denver on its way to the High Plains of eastern Colorado and Nebraska. It’s both a major drainage for the central portion of the Rockies and one of the best rivers for trout fishing in the region, and on Wednesday we found out that one of its main tributaries – Tarryall Creek – is going to have roughly 1,900 acres protected as a new state wildlife area.

The Colorado Sun relayed the news, noting that the land – the former Collard Ranch in the heart of South Park – was purchased for public use by a combination of funds from the Western Rivers Conservancy and Great Outdoors Colorado at a price of some $8.25 million. Some 5 miles of Tarryall Creek shoreline will be owned and protected now, giving access to both hunters and anglers to some of the most pristine trout waters in the area.

Tarryall Creek, for the record, flows southeast across the northern portion of South Park, skirting the southern border of the Lost Creek Wilderness before teeing into the South Platte outside Florissant. It’s no surprise that some of the best trout fishing in all of Colorado can be found on the South Platte in Cheesman Canyon just downriver from where Tarryall pours itself in. Now, the public will have much more straightforward access to fishing these waters, as they’ll be protected and managed by Colorado Parks and Wildlife.

For a more detailed look at the new acreage, here’s its listing on Land.com.