Today, nearly 2,200 acres on the east side of the formation are preserved under Larimer County law as the Devil’s Backbone Open Space. Prehistoric fossils are discovered here, too, including an ancient elephant with 5-foot-long tusks now on display at Chicago’s Field Museum. Early summer visitors are privileged to find a yellow flower of the rare Bell’s twinpod, which grows her e and in a few isolated spots in Boulder and Jefferson County – and nowhere else in the world.
Keen eyes might even spot lizards sunning themselves on rock outcroppings. Mammals like mule deer, elk, bear and mountain lion lurk under its slopes. The Backbone’s crags are safe haven for nesting raptors like red-tailed hawks a nd great horned and barn owls. Pinnacles rising more than 200 feet above sur rounding valleys are eroded into angular arches the most famous portal is the Keyhole. Like its sister hogbacks common along Colorado’s Front Range, including Roxborough State Park and Garden of the Gods, this Larimer County landmark has its own ghoulishly beautiful character. The Backbone is a beloved, two-mile strip of Dakota sandstone that rises from the rock and soil in a buffer zone between mountains and plains west of Loveland. This unusual geological formation between Loveland and the Rocky Mountains instead attracts solace-seekers to find their own version of heaven on Earth. November/December 2012 CL issue of Colorado Life Magazine)Ī place named Devil's Backbone may conjure images of a hellish landscape to be avoided at all costs.
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