Flat Tops Wilderness
The Flat Tops Wilderness is located in the White River and Routt National Forests in Colorado, and encompasses more than 235,000 acres. The wilderness is located on the White River Plateau approximately 20 miles north of Glenwood Springs and 30 miles southwest of Steamboat Springs. It is accessible from U.S. Highways 40, 6, and 24 and State Highways 131 and 132. more info
The Flat Tops Wilderness, Colorado's second largest, is remarkable for many reasons. Sharp breaks in the basalt lava flows of the high White River Plateau define the edge of the Flat Tops escarpment. Above these cliffs, a great expanse of rolling subalpine meadows and alpine tundra beckons. The open and forgiving topography makes trail routing a breeze, and, consequently, no other area in the state offers such an abundance of loop routes for hikers and horsemen.
Countless off-trail possibilities complement the official trail system. This breathtaking openness is not the only unusual feature of the Flat Tops. A ghost forest clings to slopes below the tundra, the result of a budworm epidemic that swept across the area in the 1940s, killing the spruce and fir trees and leaving in its wake a skeleton forest of silver-gray snags.
The Flat Tops are a concentration of flat-topped headlands dominated by the White River Plateau, a flattened dome of geological strata capped with lava. The plateau is most prominent at the Chinese Wall and the "Devils Causeway " a narrow ridge between the drainage of the East Fork of the Williams Fork River and the North Fork of the White River.
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