Louisiana-Pearl Station to Broadway Station: A brief coda.

Back at Louisiana-Pearl Station, I wasn't waiting for a train this time so I had time to play with the Strange Machine. The plaque explains that it is a homage to the guru of tubology and tube bending technology. The afore mentioned guru is the sculptor, Ira Sherman's mentor, Ron Strange.

The Strange Machine is a 3,500 pound kinetic structure that can be set in motion by turning a steel orb. The orb doesn't go 'round and 'round, but back and forth. It takes a little umph but it does work.

After convincing myself that the mass of tubes and neon actually does move, I headed to street level to follow the E and F lines to my final destination (for the time being) in the station-to-station hikes. I've hiked from Watertown Canyon to Union Station and beyond, through downtown Denver and Five Points, Golden to Auraria West, Wheat Ridge and Westminster to Union Station, and around all the light rail terminals, plus Boulder. After this hike, I will give the light rail a rest and change channel....the next channel being Cherry Creek. There's something that likes (to paraphrase Robert Frost) following a large stream from beginning to end 

There are very few places in Denver that is far from murals. This one is across the street from the light rail station. It's called "Furtherrr" and is by the trio, Mars-1, Damon Soule, and Oliver Vernon. It's an interesting piece in that it's hard to focus on any particular part of it.

This is the requisite shot of the Rockies for this hike. Just a little further, Interstate 25 converges on Broadway and the light rail at Broadway Station. That's Long's Peak in the distance.

Near Broadway Station, Broadway is mostly high rise apartments but it's a major north-south thoroughfare through Denver with a lot of interesting spots such as the Gothic Theater, the Brutal Poodle restaurant, Denver Biscuit Company, the Wizard's Chest, a lot of museums, Civic Park, and Natural Paws (the pet store where I usually shop for Vincent's treats and food.)

I-25 and Broadway Station is a major hub in Denver's light rail system. Lines from the southeast and southwest Denver Metropolitan area converge there with lines to downtown Denver. In addition, it's only a block away from Santa Fe Boulevard and Broadway and the parking lot has four bus gates. 

Also, it has one of the best panoramic views of the Rockies and the foothills in Denver.

The Pedestrian Bridge to Nowhere...one end is on a fenced in construction area and the other just hangs in mid air. It's been there for a few months. I guess it might one day join the lot next to Broadway Station to Santa Fe. That would be nice, but, for now, we can make jokes about The Pedestrian Bridge to Nowhere.

So ends my tour of the western lines of Denver's Regional Transportation District light rail. I've seen cool things that I would not have seen had I not been on foot...met cool people.

I'm not sure what I'm going to do with the eastern lines. Many of the stations are too far apart and embedded in industrial areas to provide very satisfying hikes. I'm thinking that I might want to tour the individual stations and hike between selected pairs of stations. The lines in question connect Thornton to Denver and form a loop with the E and F lines out into the plains and to the Denver International Airport.

But my next adventure will be to follow Cherry Creek (in sections) from it's confluence with the South Platte River in downtown Denver to it's origin near Castle Rock. It's a large geologically and historically interesting valley.

There's something that likes following a large stream from beginning to end. Join me.

Walnut Hills: The Big Hill

One thing has drawn me since moving to Walnut Hills. Why is the big hill there?

At Uinta Street, just behind Walnut Hills Elementary School, Little Dry Creek suddenly takes a dive of about 20 feet in the length of a football field. The ridge that the creek cuts persists north to south throughout the neighborhood. It begs the question, "Why are you here."

It has a double peak. If you're walking from the west along Arapahoe road, you hit a steep incline at Spruce Street that peaks and then slopes down a little to the intersection with Uinta, and then it continues up to the top of the ridge between the South Platte and Cherry Creek valleys. It makes me think that Greenwood Plaza Street and Uinta follow an old stream bed. I've speculated that a branch might have cut down from present day Fiddler's Green and the confluence with Little Dry Creek might have increased the erosion down Walnut Hills.

So, I've been looking for an old branch that might have run along current Uinta Street. Then, I remembered that steep declines will usually migrate upstream and I started looking downstream from Uinta. An old topographical map showed me what I wanted.

The map above was cropped from the United States Geological Survey topographical map "Highlands Ranch Quadrangle, Colorado, 7.5 minute series." These maps are put together from data from different sources. The hydrologic data from this map is from a 2011 data set. The tributary that flows down from Fiddler's Green is no longer on the surface. I've never seen water there.

On the last station-to-station hike, I made it a point to trace the path of the intermittent stream on the map that is shown crossing Arapahoe near Uinta.

This is a view from Fiddler's Green Circle just east of where Greenwood Plaza crosses it. The building on the left is the Kaiser Permanente IT building and to the right is the new Junior Achievement building. Between is a depression that features a pond and a preserved wetland.

There are a lot of water features characteristic of Denver urban landscapes around Fiddler's Green. According to the map, there is a spring. That and storm runoff has to go somewhere and the storm sewer surfaces behind the Junior Achievement Building.

Water features usually have purposes in addition to beautification. Water runs into this pond from a storm sewer outlet and is then cycled through the fountains, then it runs under the driveway into the depression beyond where some returns into the sewer system but much of it soaks into the ground.

It's a miniature water treatment plant.

Many of the microbes that get into ground water to cause problems are enteric, anaerobic species like escherichia coli and strains of pseudomonas....bacteria that normally inhabit the guts of mammals but get transferred from toilets and washed out of farms. Being anaerobic (which literally means they live away from air), they don't like oxygen. The fountains oxygenate the water and kill many of the trouble makers.

Also, ground is an effective water purifier. People who camp have heard a lot that running water is safe to drink. Don't believe it. Deep well water is generally safe to drink and spring water directly out of the ground miiiiiight be safe. The idea is that many contaminants are filtered out of water by soil. There's even some ion exchange that goes on when water percolates through certain kinds of rock (some of the more expensive water filters are packed with ion-exchange resins), but some contaminants won't come out regardless of how or how much you filter it. With all the mines upstream from where I live in Colorado, heavy metal contaminants should always be suspected.

But, that said, water filtration is an important part of water purification, and swampy depressions like this, as long as the water doesn't stagnate, are intentionally designed to help purify storm runoff. Even the plants are chosen to help purify the water.

Greenwood Plaza follows the old stream bed closely, so where is the stream now?

Many streams in urban areas are diverted underground into the storm water system. 

I see that in the mid-1880s, the pioneer Rufus Clark developed this area for occupation and there was actually a reservoir here where Arapahoe Plaza now stands. It wasn't a sufficient water source until Castlewood dam was built near Franktown and more water was piped in. So this spring has never been particularly productive (it's the same aquifers that feed Little Dry Creek.)

John and Marjorie Madden, the art patrons associated with the Denver Outdoor Arts Museum developed the Greenwood Plaza area east of Interstate 25 in the 1970s. 

According to the 2008 annual report  published by   Southeast Metro Stormwater Authority,  the Arapahoe Plaza storm sewer was put in the summer of 2007. That would have diverted the intermittent stream underground.

The stream resurfaces for a short distance at the intersection of Greenwood Plaza Boulevard and Arapahoe road. Then it passes under Arapahoe.

Across from the shopping center, there's a library (the Castlewood beach of the Arapahoe public library system) and a bank. The old stream bed is still visible between although the stream itself is now underground.

There it is.

There's even a footbridge over the dry stream bed.

The old stream bed curves around the bank parking lot and runs between that and the Briarwood residential area.

I'm sure some water gets into this area after a heavy rain, but I've never seen any running water here. It looks like this whole channel was carved out by the old intermittent stream before the sewer lines were laid.

From the opposite side of Little Dry Creek, you can see the depression and line of vegetation between two residences between which the old stream ran. The sewer line dumps into Little Dry Creek right here.

There is a small cascade here. It's been reinforced to reduce erosion around Spruce Street.

I can imagine the South Platte River notching out a hanging valley where the Little Dry Creek entered it....maybe ever an impressive waterfall....as the Rockies rose and erosion began to fashion the broad South Platte Valley where Denver would later be built. The tributary would wallow out it's own valley in which the cataract would travel upstream. Present day gulches (actual gulches) exist along the stream's course in several places, such as along Hampden and below the confluence of little Dry Creek and Willow Creek.

But it's above Spruce Street where the little stream has sawn through the big hill at Uinta Street. I would imagine that the little stream from Fiddler's Green helped.

Water plays a major part in crustal geology. It carves the land we see around us and under us, even in very dry regions. As crust is subducted at the edge of continents, water is pulled down with it and alters the recycling of rocks. It's intimately meshed with life and economy. I'm fascinated by the course that water runs on the Earth. 

You can learn a lot about geology by following the water. I plan to follow Cherry Creek, one of two major streams in the Denver area, from beginning to end. Do you have any favorite streams close by?

University Station to Louisiana-Pearl Station

The Sunday was cold (which I appreciated) and damp (which I did not).

The barometer in my phone was on a roller coaster ride, but the weather improved during the day.

The area immediately opposite the University across the Interstate is swampy. It looks like it's designed to catch runoff.

The Denver Third Police District office building looks like it might have been impressive when it was built. 

The sculpture is called "Aegis" and is a symbol of the protective wing of the police over the community and a memorial of officers who had died in the line of duty. There is a disk that moves in the wind for each officer who had died when the piece was constructed in 2006.

During the Cretaceous period, the area that is now Denver was under an inland sea. Massive volcanic eruptions dumped ash into the sea forming layers up to three feet thick. I saw a lot of this Benton shale on Dinosaur Ridge (I even posted some photos here!). The materials that were washed out of the Rockies into the Denver Basin contained lots and lots of this clay which came to be called bentonite. It has the property of absorbing water and expanding to several times it's size as dry clay. In brief, it's murder on construction. This is what it does to sidewalks. It you stroll in the Washington Park neighborhood, watch your step!

Shifting soils aside, I like this area for its great variety of residential architecture. An early Spanish style might be next to a contemporary brick house.

The Bonnie Brae area around University Boulevard and Ohio is famous for the Bonnie Brae Ice Cream Shop. Bonnie Brae wasn't a person. It's Gaelic for "pleasant hill" and was named by the developer of the area, George W. Olinger, a prominent mortician, after a subdivision of Kansas City. The area was established as part of South Denver in the 1920s.

Most of the avenues in this part of Denver are named for US states. I walked down University Boulevard, got a milkshake, and turned west on Ohio Avenue toward Washington Park (which is the name of the neighborhood and the city park).

Washington Park is the third largest city park in Denver and is watered by one of the many local canals called the City Ditch. The park is named after the first president of the United States. 

There are two large lakes, a recreation center, and a big meadow, plus play grounds and sports fields. It was developed in 1899 by the architect Reinhard Schuetze who had input from several early Denver personages including the unsinkable Margaret "Molly" Brown.

There are two flower gardens. One is a replica of George Washington's garden at Mount Vernon. Lectures and tours by horticulturists are popular. In the fall and winter, it doesn't look very interesting to humans but to the plants.... it's vital. All that brown is loaded with seed heads. Information about the plants is posted on signboards at the gardens.

The Rocky Mountains provide a nice backdrop to the park, so here's the requisite shot of the Rockies. The clouds were foreboding and there was already snow in the foothills.

The Louisiana-Pearl light rail station was a short walk from Washington Park. I always enter and leave the site on the (underground) light rail so this is a new viewpoint for me. The big leaves around one of the elevator/stairs entrances was unexpected.

The big sculpture, created by Mark Leese, is entitled "Jurassic Leaves".

There's also an art piece downstairs at the train platform.

Strange Machine, created by Ira Sherman, is kinetic art. There's a part you can turn to set it in motion.... in theory. I couldn't get it to move but my train was pulling into the station and I didn't have enough time to fool with it so....next time 

The concrete walls of the station, as is typical of the southeastern lines, are embossed. These have abstract images. I think they're mountains.

The next station-to-station hike will be the last for awhile. It will bring me to Broadway Station, a major hub of the light rail system. I look forward to following Cherry Creek from end to beginning after that.

University Station to University Station.

An advantage to getting up early. As badly as it messes up my day if I wake up even a half hour early, it's the only way you catch certain things, these gorgeous sunrises for instance. We're out of the monsoons so things are drying out and there's more particulate matter being stirred up by the autumnal winds. And the later church services at  Christ's Church, Denver start at 10:30 so, to be on time, I need to get up at 6:00 to give my heart medications time to get into my system, and be out at 8:00 in case I have to wait a half hour on the train at Arapahoe Station. 

Since I'm hiking in my old neighborhood around University Boulevard, I decided to visit my old church there. I have friends and many good memories there and am considering returning for an Advent service next month. It's a depressingly rare event. This is only the second time since I moved over three years ago. (I've been there several times, still associated with their library.)

The University campus is always good for a stroll. The building in the foreground, the Cable Building, isn't actually a part of the University, being a monument to the cable industry. It's not immediately apparent how prominent the cable industry is in Denver.

There is that appropriately abstract statue in front of the Cable Building.

But it fits with the powerful and cyclopean aesthetic of the rest of the campus. Here's yet another shot of the Newman Center for the Arts. That's okay....I like the building with it's towers, rose window that actually look like a rose, and sun dial.

Between the college and the residential parts of University Boulevard is a row of high rise apartments.

It's fall and all the non-indigenous plants along the boulevard are in full color.

Cherry Hills is an affluent neighborhood but Christ's Church, in the middle of it all, is a varied mix of a lot of different kinds of people that get along like a family. It's refreshing to experience. It's an Episcopal church but a large proportion of the congregation is Baptist and another is Catholic. Lake Woebegone should take notes.

The emphasis that day was the Feast of All Souls. Many don't realize that Halloween and it's associated All Hallows Day and the Feast of All Souls are not pagan celebrations.... they're Christian from their inception.

Syncretism is almost a human process. If you can't beat them, absorb them. I have no problem with that but I'm necessarily a pagan Christian. Being a werewolf in the church sorta demands it. Syncretism is a fusion of cultures. Halloween is a good example. Many cultures, pagan and Christian, are concerned with people who have died and "gone on". Samhain was (is) one of four seasonal, originally Gaelic festivals marking the end of harvest and beginning of the darker part of the year. It was thought that the boundary between the worlds of the living and the dead was thinnest at this time so celebration of relationships with those who had died including defense against the "dangerous dead" was appropriate.

The natural Christian equivalent was remembrance of departed Christians. Canonized saints were Christians who were exemplary in some way, often martyrdom or the performance of miracles. They had special days of recognition, feast days or other celebrations. But for most parts of the Christian church, all believers are considered saints and recognition of all the saints whose lives are not celebrated by special days occurs at the end of October and the start of November. Halloween is "all hallows evening", the night before All Hallows Day.

It was a good visit. I was surprised that, after over three years absence, so many people would remember me. Of course, these were people who stood by me when a mysterious ailment put me out of operation for a month. A church family is true family.

My favorite "Halloween hymn" is Ralph ("Rafe" not "Ralf") Vaughan Williams' "For all the saints" and that was threaded all through the service. It's as if they knew I would be there. And All Saints' Day isn't just for remembrance of departed friends and family. It's a day of welcoming and baptisms.

Advent Season is coming up and I'll be trying to visit again. By the way, in Orthodox Christianity, Advent comes before Christmas.... they're two different things.

After services, I headed back to the train station with a short stop at the main intersection on campus for a milk shake.

That doesn't look like a very old university but keep in mind that Denver was established in 1861 and there was no city here before 1858 when gold was discovered in Colorado. The Denver isn't much older than the University of Denver.

The requisite shot of the Rockies (heh, that phrase is now in my spell checker)....the last time I took an elevator to the top deck of the RTD parking garage, the mountains were not even visible because of the weather. Here are some more shots from up there 

The Valley Highway (Interstate 25) and University Station.

The campus and more mountains 

More of the campus and the mountains. If you enlarge the photograph, you can see Pike's Peak just over the end of the (curved) Cable Building.

Across the Interstate toward Washington Park, which will be a destination for my next station-to-station hike. There's also a good view of the Denver skyline.

Back at Village Center (Arapahoe Station) I saw these shiny grasses. Grasses really are underrated as ornamentals, but when you live on the plains, they rise in prominence. I'm going to guess that these are Miscanthus sinensis, or Silver grass.

It's cool how different light so drastically changes the appearance of things.

Are there places in your area that hold a deep significance for you. It's fun to dig deeper and learn more about them. They make good hiking destinations.