…is not in Cheyenne, Wyoming; you can find this state park in Colorado Springs, Colorado.

Cheyenne Mountain State Park recently posted an event that piqued my interest: Women’s Beginning Archery. I had dabbled in archery as a hobby in college, but lawd if that wasn’t nearly 15 years ago. Colorado Springs is a schlep for us, maybe three flat and dull hours, but this park boasts some decent mountain biking and Dan wasn’t hard to convince. We made a quick weekend of the trip.

I was impressed by Cheyenne Mountain’s archery range, which one of the instructors referred to as the poster child for state park archery facilities. The pictures below are merely from the youth/beginner range; there are multiple ranges for advanced skills as well as a “3D” course where you can shoot at forms of turkeys, raccoons, etc on path through the woods.

My love of archery came flooding back, naturally. I won’t pretend that I was shooting far, but for my first day back in over a decade, I was proud of my results.

Here’s my favorite image for the day. I didn’t miss the bear with a single arrow.

Did I mention this course was completely free, including equipment usage and parking (with our state parks pass)? And that there were no fewer than 7 instructors for the dozen of us? The class was worth the drive.

While I was slaughtering (or at least irritating) foam bears, Dan was tackling the mountain bike trails. These photos he sent me make me wish I’d had a chance to see more of the Cheyenne Mountain.