By Tom Schweich
The City of Golden is working on our first Open Space Master Plan to define how we care for the approximately 400 acres of open space in our city (See: PDF Map of Golden Open Space). Our largest open space is 136 acres in size on the southwest slope of North Table Mountain. In the photo above, the city owns all the space below the rim of the mesa and down to the houses. North to south, the city’s open space runs roughly from the quarry road in the north to the climber’s trailhead in the south.
This open space was acquired from the Mesa Meadows subdivisions and from Jefferson County between 1983 and 2000. It is dedicated by deed for public open space, park, or recreation purposes.
There are three trailheads giving access to Golden’s North Table Mountain Open Space. One is maintained by the city. It is on Peery Drive between Peery Parkway and Ptarmigan Street. There are no facilities or information kiosks here, and the small sign is easy to miss. The city’s North Table Mountain Trail is a narrow natural surface trail that zig-zags up the slope. The city trail does not lead to the top of the mesa, but the top of the mesa can be accessed by a social trail. The social trail has a rock scramble that adds to its charm where it passes through the rim of the mesa.
The other two trailheads are maintained by Jefferson County Open Space. The West Trailhead is accessed from Colorado Highway 93 just north of town. The Golden Cliffs Trailhead is accessed by a dirt road from Peery Parkway.
Like South Table Mountain, North Table Mountain is made up of river and floodplain deposits (Denver Formation) capped by basalt lava flows (Anderson & Haseman, 2021). Mineralogists will find zeolite minerals in the lava flows of interest. The K-T (K-Pg) boundary, which separates the age of reptiles and the age of mammals, occurs between lava flows, though the Jeffco lands are better to see this.
The vegetation of North Table Mountain Open Space is a mosaic of Foothills Shrublands, with some prairie and riparian zones. In mid- to late-April patches of the slopes will turn white with flowers of American plum (Prunus americana Marshall). Botanists call this plant precocious, meaning that it flowers before the leaves emerge. Later in the spring, you may notice a sweet perfume in the air. This can often be traced to Mountain Ninebark (Physocarpus monogynus (Torr.) J.M. Coult.) blooming in the small ravines.
Wildlife is typical for the region with deer, coyotes, and rattlesnakes seen occasionally. The author has had one encounter with a mountain lion in the thickets of American plum on city open space. The entirety of North Table Mountain is a listed eBird hotspot, with 158 species of birds listed.
References
Anderson, Donna S. and Paul B. Haseman. 2021. Golden Rocks: The Geology and Mining History of Golden, Colorado, Golden, Colorado.
City of Golden. 2024. Guiding Golden: Path to Play. https://www.guidinggolden.com/path-to-play
Cornell University, Cornell Lab of Ornithology. 2024. eBird. https://ebird.org/home
Stewards of Golden Open Space. 2019-2024. North Table Mountain. https://stewardsofgolden.org/north-table-mountain
Wikipedia, Editors of. 2024. Cretaceous–Paleogene boundary. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cretaceous%E2%80%93Paleogene_boundary
