Colorado has three enormous high-altitude grasslands called North, Middle and South Park. Long before the word park meant a playground or protected land, westerners used the word park to describe open meadows surrounded by mountains. Colorado’s three high mountain Parks are basins formed as the Rocky Mountains rose millions of years ago. Mountains were pushed upward, while the flat basins between them collected eroding sediment from the new mountains. And the San Luis Valley? It looks like another great Park and was sometimes called one historically, but its geological story is quite different.
Growing Home: High-altitude Grasslands
