Trinidad Lake State Park also offers camping, hiking, fishing, boating and an archery range, while Comanche National Grassland to the east boasts Picket Wire Canyonlands —home to one of the largest known dinosaur track sites in North America.

The Purgatoire River flows through Trinidad and excellent trout-fishing access is available in town at select spots along its banks. Take a peaceful walk along the waterway on the Riverwalk; or visit historic Kit Carson Park to view the bronze statue of Kit Carson.

Trinidad is also the starting point for the Scenic Highway of Legends, a historic drive over passes and through villages to Walsenburg to the north.

The lore of this area is vivid, swirling in the spiritual myths of the American Indians and the history of their clashes with Spanish explorers. Like much of Colorado, where the promises of Nestled at the southern terminal of the awe-inspiring Highway of Legends, the city of Trinidad is a well-preserved charmer where archaeology, architecture and a new creative district are offered up alongside modern-day recreation.

If a quick round of early-morning golf sounds like an ideal way to kick off your vacation, you’ll love the Trinidad Municipal Golf Course, a nine-hole course with stunning views of the Sangre de Cristo Mountains (especially from the seventh hole). Avid Golfer rated this public course One of the Top 10 Hidden Gems in the Country.

Or spend a lazy day on the Purgatoire River, which was recently stocked for great trout fishing and a lovely riverwalk.

Afterward, delve into history at the site of the Ludlow Massacre, 12 miles northwest of Trinidad. Today a ghost town, Ludlow was the site of a vicious skirmish between the Colorado National Guard and striking coal miners that left 20 people dead. Restored by the United Mine Workers of America, the site includes a miners’ tent camp, storyboards and photos that recount the chilling encounter.

Later, return to Trinidad for dinner and a stroll through the quaint, brick-lined streets of Old Trinidad, where you can ogle one of the largest collections of Victorian houses west of the Mississippi. Affordable living and beautiful landscapes have recently resulted in an influx of artists in residence and full galleries, and the Southern Colorado Repertory Theater’s professional company fills the year with classics and original works. These factors and more led to the Corazón de Trinidad (heart of Trinidad) recently being named a Certified Colorado Creative District.

Stroll to the downtown Trinidad History Museum, which houses the meticulously preserved Baca House, a two-story adobe built in 1870 that combines Hispanic construction techniques with British design. Also part of the history museum is The Santa Fe Trail Museum, whose exhibits evoke frontier life from the trail days to the 1920s. Among the artifacts displayed within is Kit Carson’s fringed buckskin coat. While here, you can also visit the Bloom Mansion, an elaborate Victorian-era confection built in 1882, and the A.R. Mitchell Museum of Western Art, which houses collections of Western and Spanish colonial folk art.

Conclude your visit with a drive along one of Colorado’s scenic and historic byways, the breathtakingly beautiful Highway of Legends. From Trinidad, the byway heads west to Cokedale, where a strip of old coke ovens (which were used to mix and heat coal at extremely high temperatures) lines the road, resembling something more Roman than frontier.

The byway heads north alongside the Sangre de Cristo range, affording spectacular views of those mountains to the west as well as the monstrous volcanic walls that jut from the Spanish Peaks to the east. It also passes through the San Isabel National Forest, home to six wilderness areas and three classic Colorado towns: lovely Cuchara’s stunning Sangre views and a sleepy downtown with gift shops and several B&Bs and cabins; Walsenburg, with antique shops, a mining museum, visitor center and Lathrop State Park; La Veta’s art galleries and the 1862 adobe Francisco Fort Museum; the blast from the past at Uptop ghost town on Old La Veta Pass.