Distance hikers Heather and Richard Moutoux, of Boulder, Colorado, are off on perhaps the walk of a lifetime. They will soon leave the 6.2-mile Waterton Canyon Trail, which follows the South Platte River's course from Jefferson into Douglas counties below Denver, onto the exponentially more challenging Colorado Trail. The latter, which begins in Waterton Canyon, winds 486 miles south through the Rocky Mountains, all the way to Durango in the southwest corner of the state

View of the South Platte River as it crosses from Douglas into Jefferson County, Colorado, in Waterton Canyon, south of Denver. The 6.2-mile trail along the canyon, which is managed by the Denver Water utility and the U.S. Forest Service, is one of fitness-conscious Coloradans' favorite hiking, biking, and horseback-riding venues

Young Rocky Mountain bighorn sheep rams calmly share the Waterton Canyon trail with human outdoor enthusiasts. The wide, scenic trail in Jefferson County, Colorado, is one of metropolitan Denver's favorite workout venues, where bicylists, hikers, walkers, and horseback riders exercise in a beautiful, invigorating, patrolled environment managed by Denver Water, the city's public water utility, and the U.S. Forest Service

Now-abandoned ranch cabins in North Park, Colorado. (Coloradans in this remote part of the state, near the Wyoming line, call their valleys "parks.") The surrounding Park Range is a spectacular portion of the Rocky Mountains. This vast area, up dirt roads out of Walden, Colorado, in Jackson County, one of the the least-populated counties in America, is somewhat like a beautiful national park but minus tourists and their inconsiderate behavior

A sign in the 6.2-mile Waterton Canyon Trail, which follows the South Platte River's course from Jefferson into Douglas counties below Denver, alerting canyon users to that the trailhead for the exponentially more challenging Colorado Trail is ahead. The latter, which begins in Waterton Canyon, winds 486 miles south through the Rocky Mountains, all the way to Durango in the southwest corner of the state

Distance hikers Heather and Richard Moutoux, of Boulder, Colorado, are off on perhaps the walk of a lifetime. They will soon leave the 6.2-mile Waterton Canyon Trail, which follows the South Platte River's course from Jefferson into Douglas counties below Denver, onto the exponentially more challenging Colorado Trail. The latter, which begins in Waterton Canyon, winds 486 miles south through the Rocky Mountains, all the way to Durango in the southwest corner of the state

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Title, date and keywords based on information provided by the photographer.
The Colorado Trail is less than a fourth as long as the nation's longest footpath, the Appalachian Trail in the East. Still, 486 miles is 486 miles, and the Moutouxes say they plan to hike all of them
Credit line: Gates Frontiers Fund Colorado Collection within the Carol M. Highsmith Archive, Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division.
Gift; Gates Frontiers Fund; 2015; (DLC/PP-2015:068).
Forms part of: Gates Frontiers Fund Colorado Collection within the Carol M. Highsmith Archive.

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