In the days before mountain reservoirs kept it flowing year-round, the South Platte River often ran so low that Mark Twain once joked, “If it were my river I wouldn’t leave it out. Why, some dog would come along and lap it all up!”
The waterway is still just a rivulet by Big River standards, but the roughly 50-mile stretch that courses through metro Denver is no longer a civic embarrassment, as anyone can see by exploring the bike path that parallels the Platte much of the way.
Factories and junkyards that once lined the river have been replaced by parks, and the greenway now centers a sprawling network of bikeways, offering some of the most accessible and historically rich trails in the region. On Page 16, we offer a mile-by-mile guide to one of the most interesting branches.
