The South Fork South Platte River is a tributary of the

South Platte River The South Platte River is one of the two principal tributaries of the Platte River. Flowing through the U.S. states of Colorado and Nebraska, it is itself a major river of the American Midwestern United States, Midwest and the American Sout ...

, approximately long,U.S. Geological Survey. National Hydrography Dataset high-resolution flowline data
The National Map
accessed March 25, 2011 in central

Colorado Colorado (, other variants) is a state in the Mountain West subregion of the Western United States. It encompasses most of the Southern Rocky Mountains, as well as the northeastern portion of the Colorado Plateau and the western edge of t ...

in the

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territorie ...

. It is located near the headwaters of the South Platte in

Park County, Colorado Park County is a county located in the U.S. state of Colorado. As of the 2020 census, the population was 17,390. The county seat is Fairplay. The county was named after the large geographic region known as South Park, which was named by early f ...

and drains part of the intermontane grassland basin of

South Park ''South Park'' is an American animated sitcom created by Trey Parker and Matt Stone and developed by Brian Graden for Comedy Central. The series revolves around four boys Stan Marsh, Kyle Broflovski, Eric Cartman, and Kenny McCormickand th ...

. It forms the South Platte by its confluence with the

Middle Fork South Platte River The Middle Fork South Platte River is a tributary of the South Platte River, approximately long,U.S. Geological Survey. National Hydrography Dataset high-resolution flowline dataThe National Map, accessed March 25, 2011 located in central Colora ...

in southern South Park."Interactive Journey"
. Coalition for the Upper South Platte. Retrieved 16 January 2010. It rises on the eastern flank of the

Mosquito Range The Mosquito Range (elevation approximately 14,000 ft) is a high mountain range in the Rocky Mountains of central Colorado in the United States. The peaks of the range form a ridge running north–south for roughly 40 mi (64 km) fr ...

, below Weston Pass north of Buffalo Peaks in the

Pike National Forest The Pike National Forest is located in the Front Range of Colorado, United States, west of Colorado Springs including Pikes Peak. The forest encompasses 1,106,604 acres (4,478 km2) within Clear Creek, Teller, Park, Jefferson, Douglas and E ...

. It descends through a short narrow gorge to the southeast, then turns east to emerge into the eastern side of South Park approximately 10 miles (16 km) south of the town of

Fairplay FairPlay is a digital rights management (DRM) technology developed by Apple Inc. It is built into the MPEG-4 Part 14, MP4 multimedia file format as an encrypted Advanced Audio Coding, AAC audio layer, and was used until April 2009 by the company ...

. It turns south, skirting the base of the mountains and flowing along the eastern side of U.S. Highway 285, then turns east, winding in a course that roughly follows U.S. Highway 24. It joins the Middle Fork to form the main branch of the South Platte near the community of Hartsel.

References

Rivers of Colorado Tributaries of the Platte River Rivers of Park County, Colorado {{Colorado-river-stub

See also

References