Deep Cut Guide

Climbing on Jefferson County Parks & Open Space land

128 crags on this site sit on ground Jefferson County Parks & Open Space manages, with 2,064 routes between them. Everything below is what Jefferson County Parks & Open Space itself states.

Jeffco Parks & Open Space manages Clear Creek Canyon, North Table Mountain and the Cathedral Spires, and says climbers can choose from more than 1,000 routes across its land. It runs a climbing committee and a citizen Fixed Hardware Review Committee.

What they require

Climbing permit
Installing fixed hardware on a new route requires a permit: a Fixed Hardware Application, vetted by the Fixed Hardware Review Committee before the Climbing Committee decides.
Hours
Unlawful to be on Open Space land from one hour after sunset to one hour before sunrise, unless posted otherwise.
Rules
JCPOS does not install, maintain or inspect hardware related to rock climbing. Climbing ethics differ by park -- Clear Creek Canyon, the Cathedral Spires and the South Platte each have their own published guidelines.
Overnight
Camping by advance permit only, obtained online at least 24 hours ahead -- not at the park, headquarters or by phone. Only White Ranch and Reynolds Parks, tent-only.
Dogs
Dogs must be on a leash ten feet or less in length and under physical control.

Read against source 1, source 2, source 3, source 4 and checked 2026-09-29 by John Crawford. Jefferson County Parks & Open Space's own climbing page is the one to believe over this one.

A heading missing from that list is a question Jefferson County Parks & Open Space's pages don't answer, not a rule that doesn't exist. This page never says climbing is allowed somewhere — none of these pages says that either, and reading permission into a page's silence is how people end up somewhere they shouldn't be.

Where the line matters

42 of these crags have another manager's land within 250 m of their map point. A crag's map point is not the rock — it can be hundreds of metres out — so at those crags the wall itself may be on someone else's ground, under someone else's rules. Each crag's own page names the neighbour.

Golden

Morrison/Evergreen/Littleton

South Platte

CO Ice & Mixed

Which crag sits on whose land comes from USGS PAD-US (public domain), read at each crag's map point. Every manager whose rules we've written down, and which ones we haven't. Closures are tracked separately and dated.