Palmer Lake & Monument — The Front Range Foothills of the Palmer Divide

Just twenty-five minutes north of Colorado Springs, the Palmer Divide rises out of the plains — a high, forested ridge of ponderosa pine and meadow that separates the Arkansas and South Platte watersheds and gives the twin towns of Palmer Lake and Monument their cool, mountain-village feel. This unhurried day loops the little reservoir that gives Palmer Lake its name, walks the shaded trails beneath the foothills, and lingers over the history of a town built around a railroad ice house that once shipped Rocky Mountain ice across the West. The Front Range unfolds to the west in an almost continuous wall — Pikes Peak anchoring the south, the Rampart Range marching north — and the whole day moves at the pace of a slow afternoon in the pines.