Denver: World Best Outdoor Venue, Mountain National Park Gateway and Craft Beer Capital
Visit the Libeskind titanium-clad Denver Art Museum Native American collection, attend a concert at Red Rocks the world finest outdoor amphitheatre, explore the transit-oriented Union Station LoDo revival, drive Trail Ridge Road at 12,183 feet in Rocky Mountain National Park, stand exactly one mile high on gold-domed state capitol steps, and drink your way through 100 craft breweries.
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Denver Art Museum
The Denver Art Museum at 100 West 14th Avenue Parkway holds a permanent collection of over 70,000 objects and is one of the premier art museums between Chicago and the Pacific Coast. The North Building designed by Gio Ponti and completed in 1971 features a distinctive castle-like exterior covered in one million gray glass tiles. The Frederic C. Hamilton Building, designed by Daniel Libeskind and opened in 2006 at a cost of 110 million dollars, is a titanium-clad angular structure that uses the Rocky Mountain skyline as a conceptual reference. The museum is particularly strong in Native American art, with a collection of over 19,000 objects representing one of the finest holdings in the country, and in Western American art. The Lanny and Sharon Martin Building reopened in 2021 after a 175 million dollar renovation.
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Red Rocks Amphitheatre
Red Rocks Amphitheatre, a 9,525-seat outdoor concert venue 15 miles west of Denver in Morrison, Colorado, is carved into a natural geological formation of 300-foot sandstone monoliths formed 70 million years ago. The venue is universally considered the finest outdoor concert venue in the United States for its combination of natural acoustics, geology, altitude at 6,450 feet, and visual drama. No artificial sound barriers or fill are needed because the rock walls naturally project sound toward the audience. The Beatles performed at Red Rocks in 1964. U2 filmed their 1983 concert film Under a Blood Red Sky at Red Rocks, an album that sold over 11 million copies and introduced the venue to a global audience. The venue also serves as a sunrise yoga venue and hiking destination when no concerts are scheduled.
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Union Station and LoDo Neighborhood
Denver Union Station, built in 1881 and rebuilt in its current Beaux-Arts form in 1914, underwent a 500 million dollar transit-oriented redevelopment completed in 2014 that transformed it into the hub of the RTD commuter rail network while converting the historic headhouse to a boutique hotel, restaurant market hall, and bar destination. The redevelopment is considered one of the most successful transit-oriented development projects in the American West. The surrounding LoDo neighborhood, short for Lower Downtown, contains the largest collection of 19th century commercial warehouse buildings in Denver, now housing restaurants, bars, and boutique hotels. Coors Field, home of the Colorado Rockies MLB team and opened in 1995, anchors the northeastern corner of LoDo. The mile-high altitude affects baseball significantly, with fly balls traveling approximately 10 percent farther than at sea level.
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Rocky Mountain National Park Access
Rocky Mountain National Park, 65 miles northwest of Denver near Estes Park, is one of the most visited national parks in the United States with over 4.5 million visits annually. Trail Ridge Road, the highest continuously paved road in the United States at 12,183 feet, crosses the Continental Divide and passes through alpine tundra above tree line for 11 miles. The park contains 60 peaks exceeding 12,000 feet, 355 miles of trails, and 150 lakes. Elk herds of over 3,000 animals winter in the Kawuneeche and Horseshoe Park valleys and are frequently visible from roadside pullouts. The park implemented a timed entry permit system in 2020 to manage crowding. Denver serves as the primary gateway city for visitors to both Rocky Mountain National Park and the concentration of Colorado ski resorts accessible via Interstate 70.
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Colorado State Capitol and Civic Center
The Colorado State Capitol on Colfax Avenue, completed in 1908 and modeled on the US Capitol, is distinguished by its gold-plated dome that uses 200 ounces of Colorado gold mined in 1908 and re-plated most recently in 1991. The building stands precisely one mile above sea level as indicated by a marker on the west steps, making Denver Mile High City designation literally accurate. The Civic Center Park between the capitol and the Denver Art Museum, designed by the Olmsted Brothers in 1917 and named a National Historic Landmark in 2012, contains the Greek amphitheater, the Voorhies Memorial, and serves as the venue for the annual Cinco de Mayo festival that draws 400,000 people, the largest such celebration in the United States.
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Denver Craft Beer Scene
Denver and the Front Range of Colorado have the highest concentration of craft breweries per capita of any major US metropolitan area. Denver proper contains over 100 craft breweries and the metropolitan area supports over 400. The Great American Beer Festival, held in Denver each October since 1982, is the most prestigious beer competition in the United States with over 9,000 entries from more than 2,000 breweries competing annually. Coors, headquartered in Golden 15 miles west of Denver, operates the largest single-site brewery in the world at that location. The Colorado brewing industry employs over 20,000 people and generates over 1 billion dollars in economic activity. RiNo Art District in the River North neighborhood concentrates craft breweries, distilleries, and cideries alongside art galleries and food halls in a former industrial area north of downtown.