Rifle Falls State Park

A Triple Waterfall Dropping Around Seventy Feet Over A Travertine Dam, With Limestone Caves Opening In The Rock Beside And Behind It. A Small State Park Whose Lush, Dripping Microclimate Sits In The Middle Of Dry Western Colorado. · Rifle, Colorado

Rifle Falls is a small park doing something strange. East Rifle Creek drops about seventy feet over a travertine dam it built itself out of dissolved limestone, and it does it in three separate falls side by side, into a gorge so permanently wet that the vegetation around it looks tropical - moss, ferns and dripping rock in a part of Colorado that is otherwise sagebrush and pinyon. Behind and beside the falls the same limestone has been hollowed into caves you can walk into without equipment, which is the other reason people come. The falls were larger before 1910, when one of Colorado's first hydroelectric plants diverted part of the flow. The park is tiny, the car park fills early on summer weekends and the park closes entry when it does, which is how most failed visits here happen. The whole thing can be walked in under an hour, which makes it a stop rather than a destination in its own right - pair it with Rifle Gap or with the climbing crags further up the canyon.

5775 Colorado 325, Rifle, Colorado, 81650, United States

Open daily year-round during daylight hours, with the campground open seasonally. A Colorado state parks pass or daily vehicle pass is required. THE CAR PARK IS SMALL AND FILLS EARLY on summer weekends, and the park closes entry when it is full - this is the single most common way a visit fails. The caves are open to walk into at your own risk with no lighting provided. Winter access is possible and the frozen falls are spectacular, though the trails ice up badly.

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