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Button Rock Preserve is managed by the city of Longmont and offers trails along the N. St. Vrain Creek, the Longmont and Ralph Price Reservoirs, and through open forest uplands. On a Sunday afternoon in early July, I walked around the gate that allows only official vehicles through to the reservoirs, and I continued along a creek that was running full. It was dancing, churning, roaring white water—it cooled the spirit on a hot afternoon.
It was clear that the focus in this area is water supply. On the left, I passed a concrete pipe supported by a dry rock wall, and I wondered if this was an irrigation ditch, originally dug many years ago. On the right, I passed Longmont Reservoir—small, narrow, intimate. It was hard to imagine a time when Longmont was small enough to have been supplied by this tiny body. Above this reservoir, I passed another small dam—an old headgate? I saw no ditch above ground here. A fly fisherman cast his line in graceful arcs over the water surface. Walkers accompanied their dogs, as they sought out and investigated fascinating smells.
About one-half mile up the road, I turned left onto the Sleepy Lion Trail. This trail winds for 2.5 mi., over ridges and glens, and then descends to the base of the Button Rock Dam that forms the 248 acre Ralph Price Reservoir (the road continues along the creek for about a mile to the same point). I climbed switchbacks through rocky hills among pines and wonderful wildflower displays. There were rock towers, cliffs, and wide views of nameless mountains and gulches, of the expanse of dam, and of Button Rock Mt. to the NW.
The trail skirts the border of the preserve, marked by collapsed barbwire fence. Beyond is private property, Boulder's Hall Ranch Open Space, and Roosevelt National Forest. The trail emerged onto an old auto road with traces of macadam. I found it hard to reconcile the idea of a paved road in this remote and wilderness-feeling location.
The road circled down to the base of the dam where a penstock released water with fire-hose ferocity. The pool that marked the resumption of the N. St. Vrain Creek boiled and churned with leaping spray. I thought of the water horses in the Lord Of the Rings that bore away the pursuing Ringwraiths.
Finally, I turned from the water and gazed up the surface of the dam, reaching 210 ft. above me (built between 1965 and '69). I climbed a trail that snaked up to the north end of the dam, continued south across the dam, and explored another trail that followed the shore of the reservoir. The maintained trail ended at a small creek, but an informal trail continued along the shore, getting tighter and rougher as it went. Another trail is mapped along the north shore, and a third segment is mapped along a short western stretch. I don't know if one could comfortably make a circuit around the whole reservation. I turned around and returned to the dam.
Here, the service road circles counter-clockwise along the shore, it turns east along a broad spillway, and then it descends to an intersection. To the left, one can walk back up to the north shore, and to the right, I returned to the main road back to the trailhead.
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N. St. Vrain Creek running full.
Looking north to an unnamed peak.
Button Rock Dam.
Penstock.
Penstock roiling pool.
Button Rock Mt. beyond Ralph Price Reservoir.
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