Echo Lake Park facts for kids
Quick facts for kids |
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Echo Lake Park
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Echo Lake from above
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| Nearest city | Idaho Springs, Colorado |
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| Area | 600 acres (2.4 km2) |
| Built | 1921, 1926 |
| Architect | Jules Jacques Benoit Benedict |
| Architectural style | Rustic |
| MPS | Denver Mountain Parks MPS |
| NRHP reference No. | 95000109 |
| Added to NRHP | February 24, 1995 |
Echo Lake Park is a park located along the Mount Evans Scenic Byway about 33.5 mi (54 km) west of Denver, Colorado. The park provides a stone shelter with picnic tables and barbecue grills on one end of the lake, and the 1926 Echo Lake Lodge (gift shop and restaurant service only) and an Arapaho National Forest campground are found at the other. Access to backpacking trails, including the Chicago Lakes trail and Lincoln Lakes trail, can be found adjacent to the lake. The park is part of the Denver Mountain Parks system.
Echo Lake Park was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1995. The listing included two contributing buildings, two contributing structures, and a contributing sites on 600 acres (2.4 km2). It included the Echo Lake Lodge, built in 1926, which was designed by Denver architect Jules Jacques Benoit Benedict, a two-story octagonal log building on a base of local granite that resembles a Native American earth lodge.
Echo Lake, along with Mount Evans, was designated as a historic site by the American Physical Society in 2017, in honor of many cosmic-ray physics experiments conducted at the lake and on the mountain between 1935 and 1960. The historic plaque is outside the Echo Lake Lodge.
Echo Lake
| Echo Lake | |
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After Year's First Snowfall
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 Echo Lake
Location in Colorado
Echo Lake
Location in the United States
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| Location | Clear Creek County, Colorado, United States |
| Coordinates | 39°39′30″N 105°36′12″W / 39.65833°N 105.60333°W |
| Type | oligotrophic |
| Basin countries | United States |
| Surface elevation | 10,600 ft (3,230 m) |
Echo Lake is a shallow, oligotrophic lake situated at 10,600 ft (3,230 m) above sea level near Mount Evans in the Colorado Rocky Mountains. It formed during the latest period of glaciation roughly 10,000 years ago. As glaciers retreated in the Chicago Creek valley, lateral moraines formed a natural dam to drainage, forming the lake. The ecosystem around the lake is dominated by Engelmann Spruce (Picea engelmannii) and Subalpine Fir (Abies lasiocarpa), with some Limber Pine (Pinus flexilis) on exposed sites.
