Chasing the Northern Lights… from Colorado
The northern lights has been a bucket list thing of mine for years. My best chance to see it (everyone’s best chance in decades) without leaving home was forgone thanks to a loving father, a beloved daughter, a missed play, and bad timing scheduled months in advance.
(The short version of the story is that my daughter decided she really wanted to see the Beetlejuice play after it had come and gone from Denver. It turns out that we could catch it in Albuquerque. So, we bought tickets, booked hotel rooms, and the night we were driving from Denver to Albuquerque was that night that everyone, everywhere in the U.S. was able to see the northern lights. Unfortunately for us, we had already driven forever and weren’t interested in heading out to look at the sky, we might have been too far south anyway, and there were hurricane force winds that required us to change hotel rooms because the wall was literally groaning as it moved in and out with the wind. — Okay, moving on.)
Colorado and the Northern Lights
I’ve seen the northern lights before. My parents pulled me out of bed one night and showed me the green colors visible just on the horizon over the neighbor’s fence. I was very young and although I remember, it isn’t enough. I want more.
Unfortunately, Colorado and Denver in particular are usually too far south to see the Aurora Borealis as we call it on Jeopardy and when we are trying to impress people. However, this is the super strong part of the solar cycle and big enough solar flares cause big enough solar storms to cause auroras to be visible much further south than normal. Still, Colorado is too far south even for most of those, so we wait.
When Can I See the Northern Lights in Colorado?
But fortune favors the bold, and all of that, and so, I become Brian, Aurora Hunter, hailing from a place where there aren’t that many auroras.
So, I did the bare minimum amount of research and set out. I subscribed to the NOAA mailing lists for Geomagnetic Activity forecasts and whatever the other two are that keep showing up in my inbox. I also check the Aurora Dashboard each day.
Ideally, I need a Kp 9, which is a very active aurora and comes from the most powerful solar storms. That is what happened when everybody but me got to see the norther lights last time. Those are pretty rare though.
However, under good conditions, you just might be able to see the aurora in Colorado with a Kp 7, or even a Kp5 aurora. How do I know? People from around Colorado keep posting pictures that they were able to take from whatever good fortune provided an aurora to them. Sometimes these people just walked out back, but often, they happened to be camping, or just a little bit out of the city, or most likely, out in the middle of nowhere.
For my best odds, we need a solid Kp 5 or 7 and some dark skies with a view of the horizon.
From a looking at a map perspective, most of Colorado has dark skies. The only part of Colorado that is majorly lit up is up and down I-25; also along I-70 in small pockets. No problem, right?
Dark Skies Colorado Impromptu Road Trips
I have a job, a wife, some kids, and a life. I can’t just blow it all off and go live in a van I learned how to turn into a camper from a bunch YouTube videos. This aurora hunter thing is a side gig. Ironically, I have many side gigs, most of which provide money I need/want, so this aurora hunter thing has to be a side, side gig.
That means I need access to dark Colorado skies with sweeping views of the horizons, without having to drive multiple hours into the night.
Colorado’s Dark Skies with Minimal Information
Alright, I’ve lived in Colorado my whole life (Go Buffs!). I’ve traveled some as kid, more as an adult, and still, I have a narrow view of Colorado common to many of us who live our whole lives along the I-25 corridor.
There are entire counties in Colorado that I have never heard of and wouldn’t even realize were in Colorado unless you told me. (There are 62?! Seriously?!) I have driven to both side borders along I-70. I’ve been both top and bottom on I-25, and I once dated a girl from the Colorado plains, so I’ve also taken Highway 14 all the way out to Sterling. I’ve also been up along I-76.
Unfortunately, these days, I live south of all that on the bottom side of Denver (toward Colorado Springs), so much of that information is unhelpful in my quest for quick exits to Northern Lights land.
I could research, but what am I supposed to ask that would result in remotely the information I need, especially with Google becoming more useless each day? We aren’t talking guidebook stuff here. We’re talking getting to nowhere and getting there fast.
I brainstormed it out on Twitter. This is what it sounded like.
My Unresearched Plan to Find Easiest, Fastest, Bestest Northern Lights Seeing Spots from the Southern Denver Suburbs as Told to Twitter
All right. If you missed the last northern lights thing because you were taking your kiddo to a performance of the Beetlejuice play and you lived in Denver, how would you maximize your odds of seeing a powerful, but less powerful than that Aurora?
There are a few options. First, you would have to get far enough away from Denver to avoid having the city lights mess with you, especially if you lived on the south end of town and would basically be looking “through” Denver to the north.
“Away” from Denver has 3 options that aren’t south. West is often a great bet stargazing wise because mountains can provide both darkness and clear skies. However, for northern lights this may be a less optimal choice due to the horizon being filled with other mountains and stuff
In other words, the West is better suited for looking up than for looking north. Between north and west, obviously the further north you go, the better odds you get of being “north enough” to see the Aurora. However, getting north is further away and obviously takes longer.
East can be fairly close to Denver. Basically, get out past the airport, pick any county line road you see, and Bob’s your uncle. Now, when it comes to East in Colorado nothing is better than I-70, but for me, that’s already up and around a bit, and may lessen the advantage
of East being closer. But let’s go with it for now. To get east of DIA and that weird airport/spaceport thing, you basically have to get to Bennet. From me to Bennet would be about 40 minutes, give or take. Something like County Rd 33 should provide darkness relatively quickly.
I mean, look. There is literally nothing out here other than this — I’m not sure what this is — a solar panel farm thing? I don’t know how much lighting they have on those things at night, but it would be trivial to get north of it.
Let’s look at our options going north. Obviously, anything past Cheyene is no brainer, but that’s a solid 2 hours from me. At a certain point you just cash in your chips and make it a trip north. (Heck, I should go with my original plan which was going to Iceland or something.) However, you really only have to get north of Wellington, though, which is only 1:30 away.
Even going north, Colorado is Colorado and if you get 20 minutes to the east of the interstate, you’ll be in the middle of nowhere which opens up any number of possibilities along the way up. Although Greeley is bigger than it used to be. I don’t know what effect it might have.
There is a cheat code for north and east and that is I-76. That would be perfect if I lived in more central Denver. As it is, I have to get to I-76 first, and that’s a solid half hour before I even get started. Same deal as I-70 northbound, head out, then take any county road away from I-76.
Hudson is probably fine, but these days it might be worth getting out to Keenesburg, which is just an hour away. North of Keenesburg seems filled with drilling sites, which depending on what kind and what they’re currently doing can have super bright lights.
The next exit is Roggen, which I don’t know anything about and I’m not sure if any of those roads I can see are public access other than 386, and if you’re going all the way to 386, you might as well go to Wiggins.
Take 39, or anything else really, until it’s dark enough. You could go all the way up to Jackson Lake State Park and use the lake for viewing/photography/camping. (Now I wish I’d gotten that state parks thing with my registration…)
Realistically, this might not be my moment. The moon is super bright right now. Getting away from the city might be moot. Still, it might be worth taking some drives. After all, with the ol’ EV, it’s not like I’m wasting gas money or anything :)
The End?
Unfortunately, I often talk (write) bigger than I act. I’m hoping to fix that. May as well start here. I’ll keep you updated.
First update: I should find my camera. I’m not sure my iPhone 12 is up to the task.
