Mount Zirkel Wilderness is a protected mountain landscape in northwest Colorado within Routt National Forest near Steamboat Springs. Named for Mount Zirkel, the range’s highest summit, and ultimately for German geologist Ferdinand Zirkel, it contains dense spruce-fir forest as well as alpine tundra, montane forest, meadows, and streamside habitat. Exposed metamorphic schist with large garnet crystals adds a distinctive geologic feature to its scenery. In the south, exceptionally heavy snow and strong winds create an unusual ribbon forest of narrow north-south tree bands, while farther north some lodgepole pine and spruce-fir near the Encampment River headwaters were burned in the Beaver Creek Fire of 2016.