jamesdeluxe
Well-known member
- Joined
- Jul 17, 2020
Last weekend, my wife, son, and I flew out to Colorado for a three-day visit to attend my niece's wedding. Since I no longer work for a Denver-based employer, it was fun to see family and friends I hadn't seen since January, play golf at an excellent course I hadn't been to in 30 years, and visit a concert venue where I saw a lot of great performances while at college in Boulder 35-40 years ago: Red Rocks Park and Amphitheatre.
Located in Morrison on the western edge of Denver just south of I-70, it's in between a couple similarly interesting places that I've posted about in the past: Arrowhead with its stunning red flatirons and Fossil Trace, which has a dinosaur museum component.
After parking, we read about the funicular that ran here more than a century ago. A shame that it's gone as it would be quite a tourist attraction nowadays, I bet.
Heading up to the main parking lot:
Then you cut through the rocks on a stairway that leads to the bottom of the amphitheatre:
Built between 1936 and 1941 by hundreds of workers who blasted and removed tons of stone, many consider Red Rocks to be the single greatest achievement of the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC), which, as we know, constructed dozens of impressive outdoor trails and structures back east.
Here's a "before" picture:
Approaching the stage, I thought of the shows with big 80s acts that I'd seen there back then -- off the top of my head: Elvis Costello, The English Beat, Bow Wow Wow, Talking Heads (twice), Rickie Lee Jones, Joan Armatrading, The Pretenders, Joe Jackson -- and amazingly enough I could remember where I sat for most of them!
Even though it was only 9 am, there were already a lot of people there including several groups using the arena for organised exercise sessions:
Walking up the left stairway:
Back when I attended shows here, all of the seats were general admission so to sit near the front, you'd arrive early and bake in the sun until showtime, at which point, you were pretty exhausted, but that was part of the experience. As I understand it, these days the first 50 rows or so are reserved (expensive) seating with general admission above that:
Dead center with downtown Denver in the distance:
A bit more scenic than working out in your local sports club:
Quality time with the family:
The food and beverage terrace at the top:
Statue of a CCC worker:
We then moved over to the Geologic Overlook Trail for a pleasant 45-minute hike:
Looking south. Hard to believe that 65+ million years ago, this was a Jurassic Park-like jungle:
Heading back to our car next to the flatiron in the middle:
Located in Morrison on the western edge of Denver just south of I-70, it's in between a couple similarly interesting places that I've posted about in the past: Arrowhead with its stunning red flatirons and Fossil Trace, which has a dinosaur museum component.
After parking, we read about the funicular that ran here more than a century ago. A shame that it's gone as it would be quite a tourist attraction nowadays, I bet.
Heading up to the main parking lot:
Then you cut through the rocks on a stairway that leads to the bottom of the amphitheatre:
Built between 1936 and 1941 by hundreds of workers who blasted and removed tons of stone, many consider Red Rocks to be the single greatest achievement of the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC), which, as we know, constructed dozens of impressive outdoor trails and structures back east.
Here's a "before" picture:
Approaching the stage, I thought of the shows with big 80s acts that I'd seen there back then -- off the top of my head: Elvis Costello, The English Beat, Bow Wow Wow, Talking Heads (twice), Rickie Lee Jones, Joan Armatrading, The Pretenders, Joe Jackson -- and amazingly enough I could remember where I sat for most of them!
Even though it was only 9 am, there were already a lot of people there including several groups using the arena for organised exercise sessions:
Walking up the left stairway:
Back when I attended shows here, all of the seats were general admission so to sit near the front, you'd arrive early and bake in the sun until showtime, at which point, you were pretty exhausted, but that was part of the experience. As I understand it, these days the first 50 rows or so are reserved (expensive) seating with general admission above that:
Dead center with downtown Denver in the distance:
A bit more scenic than working out in your local sports club:
Quality time with the family:
The food and beverage terrace at the top:
Statue of a CCC worker:
We then moved over to the Geologic Overlook Trail for a pleasant 45-minute hike:
Looking south. Hard to believe that 65+ million years ago, this was a Jurassic Park-like jungle:
Heading back to our car next to the flatiron in the middle:
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