Auraria West Station to Ball Arena and Elitch Gardens Station

I cheated.

If I had hiked from Auraria West to Empower Stadium Station, it would have taken about ten minutes and I would have seen...an empty field. So I hiked from Auraria West to Empower Stadium and then followed the South Platte River around Elitch Gardens to the Ball Arena and Elitch Gardens Station. That was a respectable hike with some interesting sights.

The empty field. 

The reason these three stations are so close together is that each services a major destination in Denver. Auraria West provides transportation options for the Auraria West college campus. The Empower Stadium Station is one of two RTD gateways to the home of the Denver Broncos, shown here in the distance. The other is the Decatur-Federal Station.

Shown here again from the RTD station, Empower Stadium can arguably be called the centerpiece of Denver.

If you drive through Denver going anywhere else, you will probably be on either I25 (going north-south), or I70 (going east-west). Either way, you pass by the stadium. Denver is also sports intensive and their pride and joy is the Broncos pro-football team. The trains are packed beyond capacity on game days.

If there's any question about the theme of Empower Stadium Station, there's a courtyard with sculptures of footballs lying around. Kick one of those, Charlie Brown.

This sculpture, Pigskins, by Troy Corliss, presents images of five footballs from different eras of the sport.

One end of the Sports Walk trail is at this station (the other is at the Decatur-Federal Station). From here it is a short distance under Interstate 25 and over the South Platte River to Empower Field at Mile High.

If you enlarge this last picture, you can see that water fowl congregate here. If you visit, take note that the water is polluted...this is no place to go swimming.

Empower Field has had several names since it was built in 2001: Invesco Field, Sports Authority Field, and Broncos Stadium. It serves as home to several other sports teams in Denver and also hosts other events such as concerts. It was the site of Barach Obama's acceptance of the Democratic presidential nomination in 2008.

The name "Empower" is from the current corporate partner, Empower Retirement. The stadium has quite a varied history including a fire on March 24, 2022 but I will direct you to the Wikipedia article, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Empower_Field_at_Mile_High, for all that.

On the day I visited, I couldn't get to the entrance due to an event, Taste of the Broncos (not as bad as it sounds...they weren't eating the Broncos), but I had a brief but friendly conversation with one of the security people.

Empower Stadium is also the home of the Colorado Sports Hall of Fame.

The brick wall displays plaques with lists of Colorado sports luminaries since 1965, the year it was established. Here's the plaque for 2014. What sports did they excel in? Well, there are a lot of names. I'll let you look them up.

Leaving Empower Field, I backtracked along the Sports Walk Trail to where the South Platte River Trail split off. Following the river, that carried me around behind Elitch Gardens.

Elitch Gardens is a privately owned, for profit amusement park in downtown Denver. Since it's opening in 1890, it has passed through several hands and is currently owned by Premier Parks LLC (I think... it's sorta hard to keep up with who owns it.). There has been rumors for some time that the area will be redeveloped as this or that, and the park will be moved or not moved, or shut down.

Regardless, it is the densest park I have ever seen. A surprising array of attractions including the rides, shows, concessions, a water park, and a botanical gardens, is crammed tightly into a very small space.

I've lost interest in amusement parks since my heart's mitral valve went on strike about 15 years ago. A person can do well enough without a mitral valve, many do, but they feel it when they're working horizontally or upside down (like under a sink or car), and increased g forces (like on a rollercoaster) can really cause problems. The mitral valve can be replaced (my sister-in-law had it done with good results) but it's a very invasive procedure that needs a very experienced surgeon.

The mitral valve is a one-way valve that keeps blood coming from the lungs into the heart from backing up into the lungs (it's called "mitral valve regurgitation"). Positive pressure from the lungs side also pushes blood on into the heart. Gravity helps as long as I'm upright. Activity also helps since the valves in the veins of my limbs work to push blood back toward my heart. 

So, to keep my mitral valve in tone, I kept walking. The underpass at Speer Boulevard has a big mural. Since we now have a Fox in the family, I took a picture of this.

Speer parallels Cherry Creek, a tributary of the South Platte River that I haven't explored nearly enough. It arises from the area around Castle Rock, to the south of home, and joins the river in downtown Denver. Trails run along Cherry Creek throughout most of its length. The predecessor of Denver, Auraria, lounged between the South Platte and Cherry Creek. Denver was originally settled across the creek from Auraria. There is a block of the original Auraria on the Auraria college campus. (See the November 10, 2017 blog, Auraria West to Osage.)

In downtown Denver, Cherry Creek is lined with parks and railroads. There are also several old steel truss foot bridges. Denver should be a magnet for people who are interested in bridges.

A short walk across Speer brings me to my last stop on the hike, the Ball Arena/Elitch Gardens Station.

As always, there is art - Seven Sisters, by Dave Griggs, welcome light rail passengers to the recreation intensive Platte River Valley section of Downtown Denver. 

The Ball Arena (once named the Pepsi Center) is a venue for a variety of sport events, concerts, and other shows. Although the location was purchased by Ball Corporation and renamed the Ball Arena in 2020, tradition dies hard and people still talk about the Pepsi Center here.

This RTD station also services Elitch Gardens and is very near the Auraria Campus.

Recreation is important for communities. It's where people come together to share positive experiences. It encourages bonding. All communities have recreational venues. Denver and Atlanta are large cities and you can find pretty much anything you want there. My early childhood was spent in LaGrange, Georgia and both Atlanta and Columbus, Georgia were nearby. LaGrange and Columbus are sizeable towns with many attraction, but even the small towns where I lived for many years, Valley and Selma, Alabama, had parks, auditoriums, gymnasiums, and local eateries that served as cultural centers.

Recreational attractions provide important services to communities, but they also have history and place and host art. A large part of lifelong learning is to dig deeply for what Paul Harvey used to call "the rest of the story." It's an engaging and profitable adventure. Dig up your town's "rest of the story." It'll take you places you never expected to go.

--- Laws of the Trail ---

On Friday, February 16, I hiked the first half of Bear Creek Trail, from River Point Shopping Center to Wadsworth; then, on Thursday, March 15, I completed the trail walking from Wadsworth Boulevard to Morrison, Colorado. I was studying the signs - rules and regulations - of the trail, and I wanted to try out an alternative route around Fox Hollow Golf Course and Bear Creek Lakes Park that might provide a more direct, quicker path to Morrison than Bear Creek Trail and Mount Carbon Loop Trail. It didn't turn out that it gives me any advantage but there were some interesting items on the way and I found out some other interesting things about the area, such as why Mount Carbon is called "Mount Carbon".

I'll be blogging about this trip over the next few weeks.

                                             Loretto Heights from Englewood Station

I walked down to Englewood station, which is about 2 miles down the hill and boarded the train for Oxford station, which might be a mile down the tracks. From there, it's a short walk through River Point Shopping Center to the place where Bear Creek trail joins the Platte River Trail. There were still patches of snow and, where water poured from drains, there was still ice sculptures.

                                                                   ice sculpture

Most of the trail runs between lands owned by private individuals or groups.  Just before Knox Court, there is a Colorado Department of Transportation facility. There's another past Wadsworth. As shown by this sign, private and public concerns often create conflict.

                                                           Colorado DOT sign

                                                                  10 mph sign

I couldn't walk 10 miles per hour if I wanted, but I guess bicycles could top that. Speed limits are usually imposed on sections that get a lot of foot traffic. Most of the traffic on Bear Creek are very courteous people, but the rule that gets broken most often would be this one - I guess the need for speed is paramount.

Honestly, I don't know why they worry about dog poop when these are around most of the year.

                                                                      Geese

When I first moved to Colorado, geese would tolerate the presence of humans but they wouldn't let them get too close but I've noticed in the last 4 years that they don't respond nearly as strongly to nearby humans and will often let people within a couple of feet. Perhaps the warmer winters the last couple of years have brought geese and humans together for longer stretches of time.

                                                     Denver Park and Recreation rules

The rules posted in the park are reasonable. I'm not sure if marijuana is considered "drugs" anymore or not since it was legalized. I noticed that nudity wasn't included (don't get your hopes up - the broader principalities would gladly reinforce their own laws concerning that.)

Both Plato and Aristotle held good laws to be reasonable laws and Augustus of Hippo in his On Free Choice of the Will opined that "an unjust law is no law at all."

Many of the early Americans stated similar ideas. Henry Ward Beecher said "When laws, customs, or institutions cease to be beneficial to man, they cease to be obligatory." I take it that these people considered "man" to mean "all people". In a time where the wealthy make it an avocation to find ways to domesticate laws to their own personal servitude, I think the Denver Parks and Recreation have come up with rules that allow the most people to enjoy the lands set aside for recreation.

These particular rules and regulations were established in 2012 and updated 2015 (as specified in Chapter 30 of the municipal code - posted on the Internet https://www.denvergov.org/content/dam/denvergov/Portals/747/documents/rules/DPR_ParkUse_RulesRegulations_05272015.pdf accessed 3/26/18), so it's a dynamic work. The whole thing is 44 pages but it also includes mountain parks where there might be bears, Red Rocks where you might be tempted to climb on things that will kill you, and so on. The appropriate sections are posted where they apply. The Parks Manager for the Lakewood Community Center Resources Department, Steve Carpenter, in an email, said that violations of park rules and regulations can lead to warnings or citations. I often see park vehicles out patrolling the areas around the trail and it's evident that a lot of work goes to keeping the parks maintained. Mr. Carpenter mentioned that Lakewood police help on occasion and I have been involved in citizen volunteer efforts to clean up the parks. Denver seems serious about their outdoor resources and pedestrian throughways.

                                                            No motorized vehicle

Bear Creek is primarily a walking and biking trail. There is a trail that parallels much of the length, the Stone House Trail, that is specifically provided for horse traffic also.

There are several picnic areas along Bear Creek Trail and they post their own rules.

                                                                     picnic area

                                                                   No swimming

This one puzzles me. After Bear Creek Lakes Park, Bear Creek, except when swollen, smells like sewage. Why would anyone swim there, much less let their children do so, yet I often see whole families frolicking in the waters in Bear Creek Park. I guess they're exercising their American rights to dysentery.

                                                                         Rapids

I've lived around Bear Creek for going on four years and I swear that, just in that time, this small cascade has gotten bigger. I like to imagine that one day, it will be an actual waterfall.

                                                                     Flash flood

I've only seen Bear Creek flood once in four years. I had to either wade or backtrack and cross a major street during rush hour - I waded. But Bear Creek (and all the other streams coming out of the Rockies) have had disastrous outbursts in the past and, despite the excellent flood control measures taken in the last century - Bear Creek Lakes, Lake Chatfield, Strontia Springs Reservoir, the lakes along Cherry Creek, etc. - the last few floods are still in living memory. Even since the dams were built, there have been some destructive flooding, for instance, in Morrison and Bear Creek Lakes Park in the 2013 floods. You can tame nature to a certain extend, but when she wants to, she can always get you.

                                                                    Trail closed

                                                                           Detour

On this trip, a large section of the trail between Sheridan and Wadsworth were closed off for some construction. It was obvious (from the smell) that they were working on sewer lines. There are always reminders that this is an urban trail along it's entirety.

But, urban or not, it is a corridor for wildlife.

                                                                    deer tracks

These were photographed at Bear Valley Park, right next to Dartmouth Plaza and Bear Valley Shopping Center.

                                                                  Crumpled sign

Signs get some abuse. This one stands at the end of Dartmouth where it takes a sharp turn. It looks like a driver didn't make the sharp turn.

                                                                      Wheel chair

Denver Parks and Recreation tries to make the urban trails accessible to everyone.

                                                                      Ducks

Ducks like it - they're everywhere. I've seen other waterfowl along the creek but it's mostly ducks and geese.

                                                                Shared path signs

Since there is a variety of different kinds of traffic on Bear Creek, there is a variety of signs reminding people to be courteous. There are a few places that, if it were not for arrows, you could easily find yourself going where you don't want to go. Bear Creek Trail runs along a braid of other paths. Some just lead you to city streets, some go on to private properties.

For most of its length, Bear Creek Trail passes over or under busy city streets. There are crossings at Lowell Boulevard and Fox Hollow Drive, but many of the tributary trails cross streets and, although Denver is strict with pedestrian laws, as Sancho Panza says, "If the pitcher  hits the stone, or the stone hits the pitcher, it's bad for the pitcher."

Denver and Lakewood Parks and Recreation departments provides maps in several places along Bear Creek Trail. They obviously want you to know where you're going.

(To be continued)