Fishers Peak State Park is a

Colorado state park The system of state parks in Colorado integrates outdoor recreation with tourism. There are currently forty-two parks open to the public, and there is one in development. Colorado State Parks host over eleven million visitors each year. Colorado ...

Las Animas County, Colorado Las Animas County is a county located in the U.S. state of Colorado. As of the 2020 census, the population was 14,555. The county seat is Trinidad. The county takes its name from the Mexican Spanish name of the Purgatoire River, originally c ...

, just south of Trinidad. Trinidad Lake State Park is nearby. The park opened on October 30, 2020, and is still being developed.

History

The land for the park, formerly the privately-held Crazy French Ranch, was purchased in 2019. Funds to purchase the ranch came jointly from Great Outdoors Colorado, the funding arm of the

Colorado Lottery The Colorado Lottery is run by the state government of Colorado. It is a member of the Multi-State Lottery Association(MUSL). The Colorado Lottery began on January 24, 1983, initially selling only scratch tickets. Its first drawing took place on ...

The Nature Conservancy The Nature Conservancy (TNC) is a global environmental organization headquartered in Arlington, Virginia. it works via affiliates or branches in 79 countries and territories, as well as across every state in the US. Founded in 1951, The Natu ...

, and The Trust for Public Land.

Geography

The park takes its name from

Fishers Peak Fishers Peak is a spur of the Ratón Mesa, which reaches the highest elevation of the collective mesas of the Ratón formation commencing at the Sangre de Cristo Mountains, a subset of the Rocky Mountains, from the west, 90 miles eastward to the ...

, elevation , a prominent, flat-topped mountain and the highest point on

Raton Mesa Raton Mesa is the collective name of several mesas on the eastern side of Raton Pass in New Mexico and Colorado. The name Raton Mesa or Mesas has sometimes been applied to all the mesas that extend east for along the Colorado-New Mexico border ...

. The mesa was designated a Natural National Landmark in 1967. The park is within the

Raton Basin Raton or Ratón (Spanish for "mouse") may refer to: Places: * Raton Basin, a geologic structural basin in southern Colorado and northern New Mexico * Raton, New Mexico, the county seat of Colfax County, New Mexico ** Raton Downtown Historic D ...

. The park includes grasslands, foothills, and mountains. One of the main goals of the park's establishment is to conserve the area's wildlife, which includes

elk The elk (''Cervus canadensis''), also known as the wapiti, is one of the largest species within the deer family, Cervidae, and one of the largest terrestrial mammals in its native range of North America and Central and East Asia. The commo ...

mule deer The mule deer (''Odocoileus hemionus'') is a deer indigenous to western North America; it is named for its ears, which are large like those of the mule. Two subspecies of mule deer are grouped into the black-tailed deer. Unlike the related whit ...

black bear Black bear or Blackbear may refer to: Animals * American black bear (''Ursus americanus''), a North American bear species * Asian black bear (''Ursus thibetanus''), an Asian bear species Music * Black Bear (band), a Canadian First Nations group ...

mountain lions The cougar (''Puma concolor'') is a large cat native to the Americas. Its range spans from the Canadian Yukon to the southern Andes in South America and is the most widespread of any large wild terrestrial mammal in the Western Hemisphere. I ...

, and

bobcat The bobcat (''Lynx rufus''), also known as the red lynx, is a medium-sized cat native to North America. It ranges from southern Canada through most of the contiguous United States to Oaxaca in Mexico. It is listed as Least Concern on the I ...

Contiguous conservation areas

Adjoining Fishers Peak State Park on the east are two Colorado State Wildlife Areas (SWA): Lake Dorothey, , and James M. John, . Lake Dorothey also adjoins

Sugarite Canyon State Park Sugarite Canyon State Park is a state park of New Mexico, United States, featuring a historic early-20th century coal-mining camp and natural scenery at the border of the Rocky Mountains and the Great Plains. The park is located on the Colorado� ...

, , in New Mexico. The total contiguous acreage in public ownership is thus about .

References

External links

* {{authority control 2020 establishments in Colorado Protected areas of Las Animas County, Colorado State parks of Colorado Protected areas established in 2020