Denver Musuem of Nature & Science
Paint Mines Interpretive Park is located southeast of Calhan. The park occupies several hundred acres. The extraordinarily brightly hued rocks are the exposed remnants of ancient soil horizons. The old soil layers (known as paleosols) are the fossilized remains of ancient weathering surfaces that may have resembled some of the red soils of today's Amazon drainage. As you walk in this remarkable landscape try to picture the ancient ground surfaces around you. In addition to the old soils, there is evidence of stream channels in the sandstone ledges and peat swamps in the dark lignitic beds on the valley floor. 719-520-6159
El Paso County Parks
The Paint Mines are dominated by clays deposited more than 55 million years ago, and the surrounding acreage has yielded evidence of human life dating as far back as 9,000 years. American Indian tribes used
this land as a favorite hunting ground where badland breaks and gullies may have served as hunting overlooks and entrapment locations for bison kill.