Rocky Mountain Arsenal: DIA's best waiting area

Dust of a distant bison herd

While massive and intimidating, Denver International Airport sits next to the best way to loiter before gathering an inbound friend. Sure, you can sit at the cell phone lot and its little mall of restaurants, the fields beyond the airport offer a better path.

A one-time toxic waste site, the Rocky Mountain Arsenal National Wildlife Refuge has rolling acres of ponds, grasslands and of course wildlife meant to emulate the prairie before white settlement. Of course there’s a constant flow of jets landing at DIA, but it’s easy to ignore. Visitors tends to stick to its many miles of trails and scenic drive.

The Arsenal a rare plot of native prairie just miles from downtown Denver. The city’s soccer stadium rises across the street from the refuge boundaries. But cross one series of lightly wooded hills, and the city mostly evaporates. 

Like most federal sites in the up-and-down days of COVID-19 restrictions, the Arsenal’s visitor center felt mostly open, with an information desk, some small exhibits, a stuffed bison and a gift shop all in operation. The information desk was not busy. Its staff volunteer and I tried to advise a man from Texas to go to Rocky Mountain National Park outside of the reservation window but he didn’t seem to understand how that would work. 

I could have winged it and done the drive. But on this afternoon, , I wanted intel on burrowing owls. I didn’t need to see them today, but I wanted to know where I might find them. The volunteer pointed to the six-mile marker on the map, and noted that some years the burrowing owls occupied former prairie dog tunnels just beyond the visitor center. I might not get that lucky today, but I had an idea where the birds might appear. 

Finding out I came from Colorado Springs, he told me he grew up there, in the years before the Air Force came to town, when Union Boulevard was the city’s eastern border. He was not the first Springs native I’ve encountered to describe its rapid shift from quiet resort town to sprawling metropolis. 

But onto the drive. The nine-mile wildlife drive had been closed after a few miles the last time I drove it. This time the whole drive was open. Where its resident animals might spend the hot afternoon was anyone’s guess. 

Lone bison

Prairie dog sentinel

At the foot of a distant hill, the entire herd seemed to roll and wallow, a halo of dust above them at all times. Along the road, only the lone bull roamed and grazed. In this setting, The Dances With Wolves soundtrack can sneak into your mind.

The bison soon gave way to a pockmarked landscape of prairie dog towns. In the heat of the day, only the town sentinels popped from their holes, watching the steady stream of car traffic and issue warnings to their communities below. I scanned for owls and found nothing. 

My phone buzzed – the flight had landed, and I had a lot of refuge to cover to pick up my friend Meg. I covered it, but don’t ask me about any wildlife beyond a random mule deer or two. My luck ran as predicted with the owls.

On some upcoming morning I had every intention of scanning the hills and waving grasses for a glimpse of the ground-based birds. 

Big clouds above the prairie