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Top Colorado Outdoor and Indoor Activities
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items Popular and Hidden Gems in Colorado
Rocky Mountain National Park is a land of extremes. It is over 265,000 acres of towering mountain peaks, stunning floral meadows, shimmering alpine lakes, over 300 miles of breathtaking hiking trails and spectacular wildlife viewing. We have done a lot of hiking in this park, and it is breathtaking.
Rocky Mountain National Park (U.S. National Park Service)
Red Rocks Amphitheatre, an outdoor amphitheatre, is unique in its towering red rock formations, stunning views and exceptional acoustics. The combination provides a once-in-a-lifetime outdoor music experience. It's one of the top most sought after music venues in the world.
Red Rocks Park & Amphitheatre - Official Website
For over 700 years, the Ancestral Pueblo people built thriving communities on the mesas and in the cliffs of Mesa Verde. The park protects the cultural heritage of 27 Pueblos and Tribes and offers a spectacular window into the past. It is a World Heritage Site and International Dark Sky Park which is home to over a thousand species, including several that live nowhere else on earth.
Mesa Verde National Park (U.S. National Park Service)
We have gone many times to this outstanding museum. It is always educational and entertaining with unique and varied exhibits. This 716,000-square-foot museum has extensive and varied collections including natural history and anthropological materials, as well as archival and library resources. The museum has over one million objects in its collections. It offers a tremendou... It's consistently in the top 10 of museum visits in the United States.
Denver Museum of Nature and Science
Glenwood Springs is the home to the world's largest hot springs pool. Since 1888, the naturally occurring hot springs have been rejuvenating the mind and body. The spring waters—called Yampah, or literally Big Medicine, by Ute Native Americans—have b...
Glenwood Hot Springs Resort
We are way too scared to do this particular activity, but it is a top destination in Colorado. Since 1994, the Ouray Ice Park has been the largest man-made public ice climbing park in the world. It is built and operated within a spectacular natural gorge, the Uncompahgre Gorge.
Ouray Ice Park
We cannot overstate our love for this park. It is like another world, especially if you are lucky enough to see it in mist. Absolutely unwordly and surreal. Raw and untamed, jaw-dropping natural beauty. That is the Garden of the Gods. Nowhere in the world can one see such imagination-defying rock formations. It began in the Pleistocene Ice Age, which resulted in the erosion and glaciation of the rock, creating the present rock formations. The ancient sea remains of mountain ranges...
Garden of the Gods Park, Colorado Springs
In the mountains west of Pueblo, a man named Jim Bishop decided to build a cabin. Except the walls kept getting higher and higher. His family, friends and neighbors remarked, “It looks like a castle!” And that is the beginning of Bishop's Castle. Sadly, Jim Bishop died before the castle was finished, but a lot of the castle is built. We have gone several times to see it, and one can instantly and easily see the incredible craftsman, devotion and love that Bishop had for his lifelong work. It stands as a testament to the determination and dreams a person can have.
Bishop Castle - Adventure To New Heights
I love hidden gems in nature, and this is a spectacular one. It's like a part of South America right in Colorado. Located about 7 miles east of Glenwood Springs, the lake can be reached after a 1.6 mile, 1,200 foot elevation hike over steep boulders. Then you reach a landscape that renders one speechless. A tourmaline lake with hanging gardens and “soft” waterfalls. Utterly breathtaking.
Hanging Lake Located in Glenwood Canyon
Painted Mines is such a hidden gem that even some lifelong Colorado natives don't even know about them. The colorful clays within the park (the result of oxidized iron compounds) were once collected by Native Americans to make pigments for ceramics. It's free and open to the public.
Paint Mines Interpretive Park
Rifle Mountain Park and nearby Rifle Falls State Park are between Glenwood Springs and Grand Junction. They are known for their rock-climbing, hiking and waterfalls. What makes this area especially unique is that when winter comes in, these cascading wonders ice over. The flowing water freezes into a large column, creating two ice caves that can be explored. Incredible!
Rifle Mountain Ice Caves and Rifle Falls
Love it!! This fairly new museum (2016) sits in the quiet mountain town of Bailey. If you want to know about Sasquatch, this is “the” place for you. It's so popular, it already has had many tens of thousands of visitors so far.
The Sasquatch Outpost
We are far too cowardly to stay in this hotel, but for the *not* faint of heart, we have this historic hotel on our list. Located in Estes Park, it is believed by many to be haunted by benign spirits. Incredibly, that is not what it's most famous for. When horror writer, Stephen King, stayed there, he was inspired to write his arguably most famous work, The Shining which was turned into a movie. “Heeeere's Johnny!” anyone?
Historic Stanley Estes Park Hotel
To say you will be entertained here is a vast understatement. Trust us, it's a once-in-a-lifetime Mexican dining experience. It is a 52,000 sq. ft. replice Mexican village with themed rooms intended to invoke regional architectural styles across Mexico—Acapulco, Puerto Vallarta, and Guadalajara. Its tower juts 85 feet in the air, with its gold-leafed dome supporting a statue of the last Aztec emperor. Eat superior food amidst gunfights, gorilla hijinx, puppet shows, caricature artists and perhaps the what the restaurant is most famous for - cliff divers from indoor waterfalls.
Casa Bonita
Bent's Fort is located in the plains of eastern Colorado in the city of La Junta. The historic fort was founded in 1833 as a trading post on the banks of the Arkansas River. It was on the Santa Fe Trail, vital at the time for business and strategic significance. The fort and its artifacts are remarkably preserved. You *will* know what life was like at the Fort back in the mid-19th century in eastern Colorado.
Bent's Old Fort National Historic Site