O’Fallon Park Colorado Hike Guide
O’Fallon Park is a Denver Open Space Park located in Morrison, Colorado. The park is popular with mountain bikers in the spring, summer and fall but can be hiked year round. O’Fallon Park offers a handful of trails with decent views into the Indian Peaks Wilderness the surrounding foothills on a clear day. However, the park’s trails also have visibility into residents of Morrison, which can take away from the hiking experience at times. O’Fallon Park is family friendly and a good spot for hikers of all levels.
O’Fallon Park Quick Facts
O’Fallon Park: ★★ (⅖ Stars)
Distance: Park has about 6 miles of trails, view trail map here.
Elevation Start: 7,200 ft
Highest Point: 7,600 ft – approximate
Total Elevation Gain: Various – most trails under 500 ft
Estimated Time to Complete: Various – most trails 1-2 hours RT
Difficulty: Easy What does this mean?
Class: Class 1 – What does this mean?
Season: Year-Round (Expect occasional snow/ice December – March)
Directions to O’Fallon Park
Trailhead: Bear Creek Trail (Pence Park)
Getting Here: Depending on your direction, there are a couple of different ways to get to O’Fallon Park. You can travel from Morrison up Colorado Highway 74 and park right outside of Kittredge. Alternatively, you could drive up from Morrison on 285 to Meyers Gulch Road until you reach the sign for Pence Park. If you are coming from the west, both areas are a good spot to park, but I generally park at Pence Park on Meyers Gulch Road. If you type “O’Fallon Park” into your navigational app, it will most likely bring you to the trailhead off of CO 74.
Parking: Two out of the three parking areas have non-plumbing bathrooms and are free to park. The main O’Fallon Park entrance can get quite crowded, especially during summer/bbq season. If that lot is full, continue up to Pence Park, I have never found this lot full and even if it is, there is plenty of roadside parking. All parking areas are free and require no fee.
Summary
Dogs: O’Fallon Park is a dog friendly park, but can get muddy in the spring and summer after a snowfall. There are poop bag stations at 2 out of the 3 parking areas.
Camping: Camping is not allowed in O’Fallon Park, seek alternative lodging.
Make it a Loop: O’Fallon Park has a few different shorter and longer loops to choose from. If you are mountain biking, you could easily venture into Corwina Park to extend your trip. View park map here.
Trail X Factors: Residential Views
When I hike, I like to immerse myself in nature, leave society behind and forget where I am for a little bit. Unfortunately, the hike in O’Fallon Park makes it hard to do that. From the start of the hike, you follow a heavily trafficked road and depending on your route, will enter a massive field that feels more like the backyard of 5-6 houses. I understand that every hike is not going to be in Narnia with 0 signs of humanity, but when there are so many other trails in the area, it makes O’Fallon Park one of my least favorites.
Mick’s Tip: Yes, you can hike O’Fallon Park year round but I would recommend it in the winter/when there is still snow on the ground. There are less people, less mountain bike traffic and in general, less mud to worry about.
Best Views: If you find the right location, O’Fallon Park can be a good spot to photograph families, portraits etc. From a landscape POV, the views are not great. Wildlife in the area includes: mule deer, elk, fox, and golden eagles. Overall, you would be fine just bringing a phone to snap pictures at O’Fallon Park.
O’Fallon Park Hike Route
Gear Needed
- Mickey’s Mountain Kit
- Optional: Microspikes – helpful year-round (ice in winter, loose dirt in summer, mud in spring)
- Optional: Camera
Our Trip to O’Fallon Park: February 2018
O’Fallon Park is about 20 minutes from our house, but its not one of our normal spots to walk Juno. At first, I thought that the reason was it’s about 10 minutes farther away from some of our favorites: Flying J, Three Sisters, Meyer Ranch Open Space, Evergreen Lake etc. However, after more visits to O’Fallon Park, I really just didn’t like it that much. My first few visits were over the summer were the park is loaded with mountain bikers. Believe it or not, the “official” trail rule is for bikers to yield to hikers/walkers but there is no planet where that happens. I don’t blame bikers honestly, but when you are walking a high energy dog on a narrow trail, it’s very annoying to have to step off every 4 seconds.
On our most recent visit to O’Fallon Park, Jackie, Juno and I headed there in February of 2018. There was still a bit of snow on the ground from a recent storm, but the temps were high enough to avoid creating mud which was great. We started at Pence Park and hiked the Bear Creek trail to the meadow view trail back to the west ridge trail. It was a bit windy, but Juno was in heaven because there was lots of fresh snow to stick her face into. As we walked towards the east side of the park, we entered a massive field aka the back yards of Morrison residents. I always think how annoying it would be to have your house back private land, only to have it be used by outdoor enthusiasts year-round. I suppose that is the hermit in me though…
As we started our way up the West Ridge Trail, the winds started to pick-up and the temperature cooled in the shady area of O’Fallon Park. Since the sun had not touched this portion of the park, the trail was still covered with lots of snow, but traction was still good. Juno started sniffing some dear tracks which was a lot of fun for the person holding her harness. No matter how many times she gets the scent of an animal, she never learns that the animal was last there about a week ago.
We wrapped up the hike and it ended up being about 3 miles by the time we got back to Pence Park. O’Fallon Park is a decent spot to hike, I would just recommend some other parks in the area instead.
