Tilted red sandstone rock formations. Roxborough State Park, Colorado, USA.

Roxborough State Park features strikingly tilted red sandstone formations in Colorado, USA. We hike up the pleasant Carpenter Peak Trail and back via Elk Valley loop and Fountain Overlook, 8.5 miles with 1600 feet gain. A shorter walk is to the Peak then directly back (6.2 miles and 1400 ft). Roxborough State Park is in Douglas County 25 miles south of Denver, Colorado, USA. Honored as a National Natural Landmark, Roxborough State Park features the spectacularly tilted sandstone of the Fountain Formation, laid down over 300 million years ago with the gradual erosion of the Ancestral Rocky Mountains. After millions of years of uplift and erosion, these red sandstones stand dramatically at a sixty degree angle. Also exposed is geology from the Precambrian to Late Mesozoic, including hogbacks of Cretaceous, Permian, and Pennsylvanian age. Erosion of steeply dipping monoclinal sedimentary sections has resulted in the series of three major hogbacks and strike valleys, exposing scenic dipping plates, spires and monoliths. Precambrian gneiss and biotite-muscovite granite are exposed on Carpenter Peak. The park is also a State Historic Site and National Cultural District, due to archaeological sites.

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Contained in galleries: 2017 Sep 21-Oct 17: CO, MO, SD, WY USA, Colorado: Roxborough State Park

Roxborough State Park features strikingly tilted red sandstone formations in Colorado, USA. We hike up the pleasant Carpenter Peak Trail and back via Elk Valley loop and Fountain Overlook, 8.5 miles with 1600 feet gain. A shorter walk is to the Peak then directly back (6.2 miles and 1400 ft). Roxborough State Park is in Douglas County 25 miles south of Denver, Colorado, USA. Honored as a National Natural Landmark, Roxborough State Park features the spectacularly tilted sandstone of the Fountain Formation, laid down over 300 million years ago with the gradual erosion of the Ancestral Rocky Mountains. After millions of years of uplift and erosion, these red sandstones stand dramatically at a sixty degree angle. Also exposed is geology from the Precambrian to Late Mesozoic, including hogbacks of Cretaceous, Permian, and Pennsylvanian age. Erosion of steeply dipping monoclinal sedimentary sections has resulted in the series of three major hogbacks and strike valleys, exposing scenic dipping plates, spires and monoliths. Precambrian gneiss and biotite-muscovite granite are exposed on Carpenter Peak. The park is also a State Historic Site and National Cultural District, due to archaeological sites.