Digging Boulder: A Tour of the Ditches that Helped Develop the City

Date and Time for this Past Event

• Saturday, May 3, 2025  9am - 12pm

Location

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Details

Do you dig Boulder? Tour the ditches of downtown Boulder to learn how each spring, our more than 150-year-old ditch system brings water to our city’s plants and animals.
DISTANCE: 3.5 miles; PACE: Conversational (1.5-2 miles per hour); TERRAIN: Sidewalks, paved multi-use paths, trail; ELEVATION GAIN: 230’; ACCESSIBILITY: Most of the route is stroller and wheelchair accessible; there are alternative paths when not. Viewpoint Trail along the base of Flagstaff Mountain is rocky and narrow with a 70-foot elevation gain, but not difficult.
The Digging Boulder Walking Tour, guided by Boulder Walks, provides the opportunity to admire the great effort of carving strategic channels into this region’s rocky landscape to bring vital irrigation from Boulder Creek and Silver Lake, below Arapahoe Glacier, to the farmers of early Boulder. Today, these same ditches enable CSAs (Community Shared Agriculture), other farmers, ranchers, and localities to procure, store, and utilize water to produce harvests and sustain livestock. We will discuss the importance of ditch headgates, when and why they are opened, what those large horizontal wheels are and what they do, and the role of the dedicated ditch riders who operate them.
Registration: https://volunteer.bouldercolorado.gov/event/603144-digging-boulder-a-tour-of-the-ditches-that-helped-develop-the-city