Flat Tops Wilderness Area is a vast protected mountain landscape in northwestern Colorado covering 235,214 acres in the Routt and White River national forests. Designated a wilderness area in 1975 after decades of earlier protection and debate, it became Colorado’s third largest U.S. wilderness area and preserved disputed South Fork lands from proposed dam construction. Trappers Lake helped inspire Arthur Carhart’s conservation ideas, giving the area an important place in American wilderness preservation. Its broad flat-topped peaks, basalt-capped plateau, glacially carved valleys, alpine tundra, forests, lakes, and dramatic Devil’s Causeway make it one of the state’s most distinctive backcountry regions.