The Ponderosa Pines and a few Douglas Firs that make up this forest really do look black in the right light. But since this is common of forests of pines I don’t know why this name was picked for the forest that covers the Palmer Divide between Denver and Colorado Springs. The boundaries are indefinite but are generally considered to be I-25 in the west and somewhere Kiowa around Creek in the east.

The people of Black Forest, Colorado claim that it does not extend north of the El Paso County boarder, but it is commonly accepted that the remnants of the forest in Elbert and Douglas counties are also part of the Black Forest. Once it was really huge, but a large part was logged out to provide building materials for Denver in the early days of the 1859 gold rush. But with the decline of ranching and the rise of tree planting exurbia settlers the forest is growing once again.

One of the neat features were the Albert’s Squirrels that are (or were) common in the forest. I liked them because of their resemblance to the black squirrels of Mirkwood described in The Hobbit.