The best climbing route in the Flatirons is the Standard East Face route up the 1,300-foot-high East Face of the Third Flatiron, one of the most prominent formations on Green Mountain. RELATED: By the Numbers: Great Sand Dunes National Park and Preserve The Best Flatirons Climbing Route Arrange a car shuttle or do a 14-mile out-and-back trek. The trail passes all the big rock formations, crosses a variety of terrain, passes through grasslands and forests, and offers postcard views. The best Flatiron hike is the Mesa Trail, which winds along the edge of the Flatirons for seven miles from Chautauqua Trailhead to South Boulder Trailhead. Over 100 miles of trails lace the Flatirons on Green and South Boulder peaks in Boulder Mountain Park, offering plenty of easy to strenuous hiking adventures. RELATED: By the Numbers: Pikes Peak The Best Flatirons Trail Water erosion later attacked the slowly rising sandstone, chiseling out today’s iconic cliffs over the last 30 million years. Uplift was along several faults which tilted the Fountain Formation rock layers downward and eastward, leaving today’s 50-degree-angled Flatirons. RELATED: 8 Places for an Intense Colorado Workout How Were the Flatirons Formed?Īfter the initial rock deposition, the Flatirons formed much later during the uplift of today’s Front Range Mountains between 70 and 64 million years ago. The Fountain sandstone found at Garden of the Gods and Roxborough State Park is soft and easily eroded, but at the Flatirons the rock grains are cemented together by adularia, forming the erosion-resistant formations. The stone was originally deposited by rivers and creeks on the eastern edge of a mountain range called the Ancestral Rockies about 300 million years ago. The Flatirons are composed of sandstone and conglomerate in the Fountain Formation, a 1,000-foot-thick rock unit along Colorado’s Front Range between Cañon City and Fort Collins.
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