AURORA, Colo. — The popular off-leash dog area at Cherry Creek State Park will be closed Oct. 11 through Oct. 15.
The closure will allow park staff to make enhancements and perform needed maintenance work, Colorado Parks & Wildlife (CPW) said.
This is the third year in a row the dog area will close, CPW said.
> The video above is from 2019: Loved to Death: Cherry Creek State Park's off-leash dog area
“We are dedicated to being active caretakers of this highly valued public land,” Park Manager Jason Trujillo said. “It has gotten to the point where it is so busy down there we can’t get any work done without interrupting the experiences of visitors and this maintenance work cannot be conducted safely while the area is open.”
The 107-acre off-leash area attracts more than one million people and dogs each year, CPW said.
“It is hard to have a sustainable resource when it is so heavily used,” Trujillo said. “The work we are doing will be a balance of resource protection and additional improvements. We appreciate the patience of our visitors during the brief period the dog off-leash area will close.”
CPW said staff will make improvements that include:
- Adding concrete that will improve access from the parking lot to the entry to the off-leash area
- Temporary fencing for native grass reseeding and weed management
- Resurfacing trails
- Restriping the parking lot at 12 mile south
- New message board at the entrance station
Parks staff said going forward, they will be looking at doing major maintenance work twice a year - once in autumn and once in spring.
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