Red Rocks Park, Morrison, Colorado, July 2015

These photographs support a post here describing the park as it appears present day

Over the years this was the chief outcropping that held our interest, the first that you see upon entering the park from the 3rd entrance, the one on Morrison road that goes right through the town along the creek and up to Evergreen. The grouping has several features about it interesting to climbers and teens. There was never a time that teens were not climbing this pile. Never. Groups of kids would encounter other groups of kids and follow one another across surfaces, over crevasses, sliding down rocks along passages into hidden rock chambers. One such passage a large flat rock parallel with this one that slides underneath with another flat slab above it leaving a gap wide enough for a human and deposits the sliders into a chamber at the bottom. The flat and quite pointless area littered with trash is escaped through a side chamber and climbed out as a well. 

The German Shepherd Alsatian would not be left behind. He barked and cried like a baby, pacing wildly. Dogs were not on leash. What would be the point? He had to go with us. Everywhere throughout.  Except for the top of this. The top of this monster is the one thing the dog could not do. The rocks form a fairly decent nearly 90° juncture with base that meets at 45°. The crack can be scampered up as using side pressure and there were always teens at the very top surveying the entire surface up there as well as throughout the pile at the bottom. 

Now the paths kindly take visitors away from the rocks well around where we would cut right through to get at the rocks directly. No more of that. The area between the path and the rocks is protected and now filled with life that would not be possible if not left alone. 

This is how far it walks you around. The point is to exhaust you and keep you out of trouble hereafter.

There is not a kid in my day who would not be on these rocks in seconds. It is the whole point of going to the park, to climb all over the outcroppings. 

But now there are far too many of us and we must enjoy the park a more subdued and mature and controlled way.