City: Colorado Springs, CO

Category: Parks & Recreation

Telephone: (719) 520-6375

Description: This quiet jewel of a park has trails, ponds, a creek, and more in a serene shortgrass prairie. There are open areas in the Cottonwood Meadows and playing fields and pavilions at the Duckwood Active Use Area, but this park is more the dense, introspective, tranquil variety. The Fountain Creek Nature Center sits about center of the park, and its Cattail Marsh Wildlife Area is a quiet preserve for wildlife. A stroll through these wide, easy trails is a walk in bird land, with lizards, toads, frogs, beavers, muskrats, and arthropods sharing the habitat. At the north end of the park is Willow Springs Ponds, a favorite fishing hole on the weekends. The south end of the park is home to Hanson Nature Park. If you’d rather use the park for more active pursuits than wildlife and plant appreciation, there are 6 pavilions, one of which seats 100 people. Each pavilion has grills and an electrical outlet. There also are 2 volleyball courts (bring net and ball), a basketball court, 2 horseshoe pits (bring ’shoes), water, and restrooms.