There are a lot of beautiful places in Colorado. What I love about hiking in Colorado is the rich history behind many of our State Parks. one of my favorites is Castlewood Canyon State Park. Here a Dam use to reside that eventually broke in 1933. The park is a little over 30 miles from Denver, and when the Dam broke, Denver was flooded. To this day the reminiscence of the dam are still in place. 
At one point a man by the name of Patrick Lucas got permission to build a wooden cabin on the land, all though it was not official till 1901, the Lucas family eventually built a concrete home to raise their children . Today the remains of their concrete house still remain. 
What is interesting is the Lucas family was present during the night of a terrible storm that broke the damn. 4 hours went by and the flooding hit Denver with heights of up to 4 feet in certain places of Denver.