Route 4 branches east from Boulder

Route 1 uses Boulder as one of the Front Range gateways before turning west toward the high country. Route 4 takes the other direction.

Start in Boulder, then leave the mountains behind and follow the horizon east. The character of the trip changes quickly: fewer ridgelines, longer sightlines, smaller towns and a sky that can feel much larger than it does in the mountains.

This is the plains branch of the Colorado Stargazing Trail.

The route

From Boulder, head east and northeast toward Pawnee National Grassland, where the Front Range glow begins to fall behind you and the prairie becomes the foreground.

Continue toward Jackson Lake State Park for another accessible plains stop with camping and a broad horizon.

From there, turn the route south and southeast toward John Martin Reservoir State Park. Beyond the larger highway corridors, the landscape becomes more remote and the artificial sky glow drops further.

Continue into southeastern Colorado through Kim and finish around Comanche National Grassland, where open country, sparse settlement and enormous horizons make the night sky the dominant feature of the landscape.

Boulder → Pawnee National Grassland → Jackson Lake State Park → John Martin Reservoir State Park → Kim → Comanche National Grassland

Why start in Boulder

Boulder makes Route 4 connect cleanly to Route 1 while giving the trail a genuine fork: west toward the Continental Divide, or east toward the plains.

It also gives travelers a place to prepare before committing to much thinner services. Fuel, food, weather checks and downloaded maps are easier to sort out before the road gets quiet.

The mountains disappear behind you

The plains offer a different kind of stargazing than the high country. There is less dramatic foreground, but there is also much less terrain blocking the sky.

That makes this route especially good for meteor showers, broad Milky Way views, low-horizon events and nights when you want to watch the sky from edge to edge.

The farther east and south you travel, the more the horizon becomes part of the experience.

Let the route get darker

Pawnee and Jackson Lake are useful first nights because they are relatively approachable from the Front Range. John Martin, Kim and Comanche push the trip into a more remote version of the plains.

Do not treat every stop as identical. The route is designed to show the transition from the Front Range edge into genuinely sparse southeastern Colorado.

Bring what the plains do not provide

Services become thin quickly once you leave the major corridors. Carry water, keep the fuel tank comfortably above empty, download maps before losing signal and know exactly where you are allowed to park or camp.

An empty road shoulder is not automatically a legal observing site. Use the individual place pages for current access, camping and after-dark guidance.

Build around the weather

The plains can give you huge clear horizons, but they can also give you wind, thunderstorms and fast-moving weather with very little shelter.

Use the route as a framework. If one part of the plains is cloudy and another is clear, move the night rather than forcing the itinerary.