Description
Why You Should Visit
More than 80 percent of Colorado's wildlife depends on rivers and riverside habitat. The San Miguel, one of the few remaining naturally functioning rivers of the West, supports some of the best riparian (streamside) habitat in the Upper Colorado Basin.
Natural flood cycles and a history of very limited development have kept many parts of this river in pristine condition, much as they would have appeared before European settlement.
You can explore a dramatic, narrow canyon with red-rock sandstone walls looming as high as 2,000 feet. A discerning eye might see nesting American dippers (water ouzels) along the canyon walls. In its depths, a very rare riparian forest community combines narrowleaf cottonwood, Colorado blue spruce and thinleaf alder.
Why TNC Selected This Site
Because it supports one of the best known examples of the globally rare narrowleaf cottonwood-Colorado blue spruce/thinleaf alder riparian plant community.
What TNC Has Done/Is Doing
With three preserves and cooperative projects with the Bureau of Land Management and other partners, TNC has helped protect more than 30 miles of the San Miguel River.
TNC's first preserve along the San Miguel was established at Tabeguache in 1988. San Miguel Canyon and South Fork both were acquired (within several weeks of each other) in 1989.