08/17/17 - Day 136 - Denver, CO - Rocky Mountain Arsenal Wildlife Refuge

The Wildlife Refuge located about 13mi north east of downtown Denver.  It is named as such because the site of the current park was previously a US Army munitions plant opened in 1942.  The plant produced both conventional and chemical weapons for use in WW2 and beyond.  It was later used to produce rocket fuel and even leased to a private companies to produce pesticides  Predictably, this type of activity had negative ecological impacts to the surrounding area.  In 1987, it was placed on the infamous "Superfund" list.  Since then, all manufacturing activity ceased and the lack of human activity created an involuntary park that endangered species (including Bald Eagles) began to inhabit.  The site was officially made a wildlife refuge in 1992.  Clean up was completed by 2010.  It's now a 17,000 acre park with several bike and hiking paths, even a small herd of wild bison.




It's a different type of park than most of the ones I visited in Denver in that's basically flat prairie land vs. hills and mountains.






However, much like the other parks, there is still a lot of wildlife roaming about.








There were also a fair amount of wild flowers still blooming in the middle of summer.




There were a couple of spots I deemed a little too risky to take the bike, as seen below.  Otherwise it was a carefree visit.