The best playgrounds in Denver

City Park Playground (Dragon and Castle)

City Park

A castle tower with a slide and a dragon slide with a wave run, just west of Ferril Lake, on the spot where the 1996 playground stood until the city replaced all 17,000 square feet of it in 2023. The design also has towers joined by a rope bridge, a skywalk, a parkour course with a spinner, a scooter track, swings, a carousel and a separate under-5 area, with an open-air pavilion for the picnic.

The Denver Zoo is about 400 meters away, and the museum's City Park Nature Play is a kilometer east across the park.

Restroom

Yes

Water play

Yes

Swings

Yes

Picnic tables

Yes

Accessible play

Yes

Ages

Ages 3 and up

City Park Nature Play

City Park

Four acres of nature play outside the southwest corner of the Denver Museum of Nature & Science, built with the museum and finished in fall 2024. There's a 20-foot bighorn sheep to climb, a mountain stream with a beaver dam, dioramas of Colorado's ecosystems, pollinator gardens, benches carved by a chainsaw artist, and swings and slides set into the landscape because the kids who were asked wanted them. It's free, and it was built so a wheelchair can get around it.

Restroom

Yes

Accessible play

Yes

Wheelchair access

Yes

Ages

Ages 3 and up

Congress Park Playground

Congress Park

Redesigned and expanded in 2024, with accessibility part of the brief, right next to the park's outdoor pool (rebuilt in 2022). A picnic shelter is beside it. The Denver Botanic Gardens are about 500 meters north, and Cheesman Park is under a kilometer west.

Restroom

Yes

Water play

No

Swings

Yes

Ages

Ages 3 and up

Sloan's Lake South Playground

Sloan's Lake

A rocket ship playground on the south shore of the lake at 17th and Utica, rebuilt in 2023. The large rocket play structure is for 5 to 12s and a smaller one for 2 to 5s, and around them are a zip line, an eclipse net climber, red sandstone boulders, swings, an oodle swing, a pump track and a synthetic-turf berm called the space worm that rises from two feet to seven. The splash pad in the design was dropped, and its spot is a sand play area.

The picnic area beside it can be permitted. The pump track suits a kid on a balance bike, and the sand the toddler.

Restroom

Yes

Shade

Yes

Water play

No

Swings

Yes

Ages

All ages

Paco Sanchez Playground

West Colfax

The park department's flagship playground, built in phases along Lakewood Gulch in a 30-acre park just east of Knox Court. The play structures are themed on music and radio, built around a giant 1950s microphone tower, and designed for all ages.

Around it the park has an interactive fountain and a dog park, with the Lakewood Gulch trail running through.

Restroom

Yes

Water play

Yes

Ages

Ages 3 and up

Joy Park at Children's Museum of Denver

Platte River

The outdoor part of the Children's Museum of Denver: a river to dip toes in, float boats on and dam up, sand with shovels and dump trucks, ruins, a dueling zip line, a 1953 green Chevy to climb into and a straw bale maze in the apple orchard. It's for all ages, babies included, and the water is seasonal.

A swimsuit, a towel and a change of clothes for the river.

Free entry

No

Changing table

Yes

Wheelchair access

Yes

Inspiration Point Park Playground

Inspiration Point

The playground, the picnic sites and the shade shelter are all from 2022, when the city rebuilt this 25.5-acre park on its northwest edge and restored the historic masonry wall at the overlook, which has wide views of the Front Range. More than five acres of the park are kept as natural area.

Shade

No

Ages

Ages 3 and up

Washington Park Nature Playground

Washington Park

In the middle of Washington Park, between Smith Lake and Grasmere Lake, with a picnic area beside it and the recreation center up by Smith Lake. In 2023 the old playground by the boathouse on Smith Lake was turned into a landforms play area with new seating and trees, so there are two places to play. The lily pond, the lawn bowling green and the boathouse fill out the walk.

Restroom

Yes

Ages

Ages 3 and up

Robert H. McWilliams Park Playground

Harvard Gulch

A concrete dinosaur, structurally repaired and repainted purple, is the centerpiece of a playground that was expanded in 2022 along with an accessible picnic area, new basketball courts and a planted feature that filters stormwater before it reaches Harvard Gulch. The Harvard Gulch Trail runs along the park's edge for a scooter ride after.

Restroom

Yes

Water play

No

Swings

Yes

Ages

Ages 3 and up

Central Park Playground

Central Park

Off Martin Luther King Boulevard near Xenia Street, inside a 76-acre park and ringed by mature trees, this is one of the most visited play areas in northeast Denver. The 0.9 acres hold poured-in-place mounds, synthetic turf, sand play, a climbing wall and a rockwork feature with a slide and a misting area, and the rebuild that began in 2022 added new surfacing and equipment, shade structures, water pumps with misters and a zip line.

Restroom

Yes

Shade

Yes

Water play

Yes

Accessible play

Yes

Ages

Ages 3 and up

Parkfield Park Playground

Montbello

The playground at Parkfield Lake Park, where an interactive fountain, a stage, picnic shelters, a skate park, a dog park and the Montbello Recreation Center sit around the lake, and the Derby Lateral Trail runs past for a bike or a scooter.

Restroom

Yes

Shade

Yes

Water play

Yes

Picnic tables

Yes

Ages

Ages 3 and up

Central 70 Cover Park - East Playground

Elyria-Swansea

The park is a cover over the lowered Interstate 70 between Brighton and Colorado boulevards, four acres that opened in late 2022 with play areas, a full-sized soccer field with stadium lighting and a concessions building with a public restroom. Swansea Elementary's playground is part of it. Swansea Park, with the recreation center, is about 600 meters away.

Water play

Yes

Ages

Ages 3 and up