Summit Lake Park is a

park A park is an area of natural, semi-natural or planted space set aside for human enjoyment and recreation or for the protection of wildlife or natural habitats. Urban parks are urban green space, green spaces set aside for recreation inside t ...

located along

Mount Blue Sky Scenic Byway The Mount Blue Sky Scenic Byway is a National Forest Scenic Byway and Colorado Scenic and Historic Byway located in Clear Creek County, Colorado, Clear Creek and Jefferson County, Colorado, Jefferson counties, Colorado, United States. The byway ...

about 64 miles (100 km) west of

Denver Denver ( ) is a List of municipalities in Colorado#Consolidated city and county, consolidated city and county, the List of capitals in the United States, capital and List of municipalities in Colorado, most populous city of the U.S. state of ...

Colorado Colorado is a U.S. state, state in the Western United States. It is one of the Mountain states, sharing the Four Corners region with Arizona, New Mexico, and Utah. It is also bordered by Wyoming to the north, Nebraska to the northeast, Kansas ...

. The park is 160 acres (0.65 km²) in size and contains

alpine tundra Alpine tundra is a type of natural region or biome that does not contain trees because it is at high elevation, with an associated harsh climate. As the latitude of a location approaches the poles, the threshold elevation for alpine tundra gets ...

. Land to the east of the lake is in a state of

permafrost Permafrost () is soil or underwater sediment which continuously remains below for two years or more; the oldest permafrost has been continuously frozen for around 700,000 years. Whilst the shallowest permafrost has a vertical extent of below ...

which helps to prevent drainage of the area. During the summer, the park is filled with wildflowers, some of which have not been found anywhere else outside of the

Arctic Circle The Arctic Circle is one of the two polar circles, and the northernmost of the five major circle of latitude, circles of latitude as shown on maps of Earth at about 66° 34' N. Its southern counterpart is the Antarctic Circle. The Arctic Circl ...

. The park is named after Summit Lake, the headwaters of Bear Creek.

Summit Lake

Summit Lake is a tarn which sits at 12,836 feet (3,912 m) elevation in a glacial

cirque A (; from the Latin word ) is an amphitheatre-like valley formed by Glacier#Erosion, glacial erosion. Alternative names for this landform are corrie (from , meaning a pot or cauldron) and ; ). A cirque may also be a similarly shaped landform a ...

on the north face of

Mount Blue Sky Mount Blue Sky (formerly Mount Evans) is the highest peak in the Mount Evans Wilderness in the Front Range of the Rocky Mountains of North America. The prominent fourteener is located southwest by south ( bearing 214°) of Idaho Springs in ...

and the east face of Mount Spalding. To the north, there is a

col A col is the lowest point on a mountain ridge between two peaks; a mountain pass or saddle. COL, CoL or col may also refer to: Computers * Caldera OpenLinux, a defunct Linux distribution * , an HTML element specifying a column * A collision sig ...

(12,855 feet/3918 m elevation) looking down into the chain of two cirques holding the Chicago Lakes at the headwaters of Chicago Creek. By one count that includes several unnamed lakes, Summit Lake is the 13th highest lake in the United States. In 1915, the

USGS The United States Geological Survey (USGS), founded as the Geological Survey, is an government agency, agency of the United States Department of the Interior, U.S. Department of the Interior whose work spans the disciplines of biology, geograp ...

reported that Summit Lake was the highest lake in

, at 12,740 feet. Later secondary sources occasionally report it as the highest lake in the

United States The United States of America (USA), also known as the United States (U.S.) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It is a federal republic of 50 U.S. state, states and a federal capital district, Washington, D.C. The 48 ...

.Michael Martin and Leonard Gelber, Colorad
Dictionary of American History
Philosophical Library, 1978; page 132. The land was acquired by Denver in 1924 and incorporated into the

Denver Mountain Parks The Denver Mountain Parks system contains more than of parklands in the mountains and foothills of Jefferson, Clear Creek, Douglas, and Grand counties in Colorado, west and south of Denver. Owned and maintained by the City and County of D ...

system. It was declared a

National Natural Landmark The National Natural Landmarks (NNL) Program recognizes and encourages the conservation of outstanding examples of the natural history of the United States. It is the only national natural areas program that identifies and recognizes the best e ...

in April 1965.

References

External links

National Natural Landmark - Summit Lake
{{authority control National Natural Landmarks in Colorado Denver Mountain Parks Parks on the National Register of Historic Places in Colorado Protected areas of Clear Creek County, Colorado Lakes of Colorado Cirques of the United States Bodies of water of Clear Creek County, Colorado National Register of Historic Places in Clear Creek County, Colorado

Summit Lake

See also

References

External links