The conservation and restoration of biological and ecosystem diversity is increasingly a critical management concern for land management agencies in the United States. The conservation and restoration of old-growth forests is of particular importance: old-growth forests are rare and declining, are of enormous biological and ecological value, and can take hundreds of years or more to recover, if they recover at all, once destroyed or degraded. Boulder Mountain Parks is an unusual municipal land management agency in that the management of its lands for old-growth forest is an explicit objective. However, our understanding of what constitutes oldgrowth forest and how to manage for its recovery and restoration, especially in Boulder Mountain Parks, is in need of attention. It is to this en.d that we have prepared this report. Boulder Mountain Parks can manage to protect and restore remaining old growth, but we need to know what old growth remains and where it is. Boulder Mountain Parks can also manage its lands to produce additional old.growth, but it must be able to select which lands to manage in this manner, and it must know how to manage these lands so as to maximize the likelihood that an adequate range of old growth characteristics will eventually develop. We will do four things in this paper. In the first section, we will discuss and review basic approaches to defining old-growth forests generally and ponderosa pine old-growth specifically. Second, we will recommend a definition for use by Boulder Mountain Parks in management of ponderosa pine forests. Third, we will characterize the existing forest stand data, in terms of this ponderosa pine old-growth definition, for several selected stands in the Enchanted Mesa area of Boulder Mountain Parks. We have selected this area because of the availability of data, because it is the subject of ongoing management efforts, and because some old-growth conditions exist. Finally, based on this analysis, we will offer management recommendations aimed at future research efforts and hture management: