The Front Range is a mountain range of the Southern Rocky Mountains of North America located in the central portion of the U.S. State of Colorado, and southeastern portion of the U.S. State of Wyoming. It is the first mountain range encountered as one goes westbound along the 40th parallel north across the Great Plains of North America.

The Front Range runs north-south between Casper, Wyoming, and Pueblo, Colorado, and rises nearly 10,000 feet above the Great Plains. Longs Peak, Mount Blue Sky, and Pikes Peak are its most prominent peaks, visible from the Interstate 25 corridor. The area is a popular destination for mountain biking, hiking, climbing, and camping during the warmer months and for skiing and snowboarding during winter. Millions of years ago, the present-day Front Range was home to ancient mountain ranges, deserts, beaches, and even oceans.

The name "Front Range" is also applied to the Front Range urban corridor, the populated region of Colorado and Wyoming just east of the mountain range and extending from Cheyenne, Wyoming south to Pueblo, Colorado. This urban corridor benefits from the weather-moderating effect of the Front Range mountains, which help block prevailing storms.

About 1 billion years ago, a mass of magma rose to the surface through a much older mantle, cooling to form what is now known as the Precambrian Pikes Peak Granite. Over the next 500 million years, the granite eroded with no sedimentation forming over this first uplift, resulting in a local expression of the Great Unconformity. At about 500–300 million years ago, the region began to sink and sediments began to deposit in the newly formed accommodation space. Eroded granite produced sand particles that began to form strata, layers of sediment, in the sinking basin. Sedimentation would continue to take place until about 300 million years ago.

Around 300 million years ago, the sinking suddenly reversed, and the sediment-covered granite began to uplift, giving rise to the Ancestral Rocky Mountains. Over the next 150 million years, during the uplift the mountains continued to erode and cover their flanks in their own sediment. Wind, gravity, rainwater, snow, and ice-melt supplied rivers that ultimately carved through the granite mountains and eventually led to their complete removal. The sediment from these mountains lies in the very red Fountain Formation today. Red Rocks Amphitheatre outside of Denver, Colorado, is set within the Fountain Formation.

At 280 million years ago, sea levels were low and present-day Colorado was part of the super-continent Pangaea. Sand deserts covered most of the area, spreading as dunes seen in the rock record, known today as the Lyons Sandstone. These dunes appear to be cross-bedded and show various fossil footprints and leaf imprints in many of the strata making up the section. Uplifted beds of Lyons Sandstone are found along the Front range and form the gateway to the Garden of the Gods.

30 million years later, the sediment deposition was still taking place with the introduction of the Lykins Shale. This formation can be best attributed to its wavy layers of muddy limestone and signs of stromatolites that thrived in a tidal flat in present-day Colorado. 250 million years ago, the Ancestral Rockies were eroding away while the shoreline was present during the break-up of Pangaea. This formation began right after Earth's largest extinction 251 million years ago at the Permian–Triassic Boundary. Ninety percent of the planet's marine life became extinct and a great deal on land as well.

After 100 million years of deposition, a new environment brought rise to a new formation, the sandstone Morrison Formation. The Morrison Formation contains some of the best fossils of the Late Jurassic. It is especially known for its sauropod tracks and sauropod bones, among other dinosaur fossils. As identified by the fossil record, the environment was filled with various types of vegetation such as ferns and Zamites. While this time period boasts many types of plants, grass had not yet evolved.