Best Yoga With Scenery 2015 | #Yograffiti by @lafitara | Best of Denver® | Best Restaurants, Bars, Clubs, Music and Stores in Denver | Westword
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Best Yoga With Scenery

#Yograffiti by @lafitara

For a sweet new hashtag showing off Denver in all its glory, check out @lafitara's #yograffiti on Instagram to see the Denver resident flexing and posing in mind-boggling fashion in front of street art and city buildings, showcasing often-overlooked parts of the 5280. The #yograffiti project started with ad agency and photographer friends @giggletron4k and @tsirotek, a talented and creative bunch whose aim is to bring visibility to Mile High artists and culture and fitness enthusiasts. If you're wondering how this flexy chick gets her body to bend like that, well, you're not alone. Inversions, man.

Best Free Outdoor Workout Group

The November Project

It's not easy to run, climb, jump or do lunges before the sun comes up — much less in inclement weather. But it helps when you get support and hugs from fellow members of the November Project. The group, which is an officially sanctioned part of Civic Center Moves, takes free outdoor fitness to a new level with its early-morning workouts in Civic Center and other city parks. The collectively nicknamed Tribe promotes an active lifestyle, team-building and accountability — meaning you're supposed to be there regardless of conditions — but all fitness levels are welcome, and the workouts are adaptable. Expect Taylor Swift songs, some burpees and a positivity award handed out after a solid chunk of time spent running. Oh, and someone might spray-paint "November Project 5280" onto your T-shirt as an official welcome.

Best Place to Work Out Like Nadia Comaneci

Awaken Gymnastics Inspired Fitness

Awaken is not your average gym. It doesn't feature rows and rows of treadmills, sweaty exercise bikes and back-to-back episodes of House Hunters International playing on wall-mounted TVs. Instead, the sunny studio on Santa Fe is filled with rings, bars and a pommel horse, and offers classes such as Handstand Strength and Gymnastics Foundations. If you've ever dreamed of sticking the landing like Olympian Nadia Comaneci, or of building rock-hard abs and Michelle Obama arms in a fun atmosphere with no HGTV, Awaken is your spot.

Best Place for a NERF War

PATH Movement

By day, PATH Movement is the country's only fully customizable parkour gym, offering patrons new ways to jump, swing and climb on its movable obstacle course each day. But on the second and fourth Saturday of each month, the place becomes a NERF war zone, a fully stocked tactical training facility offering guns and ammo of the foam variety for hours of fun-infused combat. Learn battle strategies through PATH's NERF Madness sessions and then take that knowledge into its NERF Warz, where sixteen-person teams go head-to-head in glorious, all-out foam-ammunition-loaded scrimmages.

8000 S. Lincoln St., Littleton
720-443-1164

Best Bowling Alley for Everyone

Elitch Lanes

Elitch Lanes attracts everyone from weekday pizza-and-beer leagues to late-night bowling aficionados. Business and blue-collar types, high-schoolers and senior citizens have bowled alongside each other for years as the booze and sodas flowed. A North Denver institution from a bygone era when its namesake family ruled this part of the city, Elitch Lanes will close this May, but there's still time to come in for a few frames, stay for the buffet and cocktails, and hang with your Denver neighbors.

Best Sports Bar for Watching Games

ViewHouse Centennial

Flush with its success in the Ballpark neighborhood, ViewHouse opened a second outpost last September right off I-25 in Centennial — and it turns out that residents of the southern suburbs had been hungering to get in the game. From almost the moment it opened in a transformed Trail Dust Steak House, this ViewHouse has been packed at all hours, with groups gathering to drink and chat, linger over weekend brunch, party late into the night — and maybe even watch some games. ViewHouse is filled with big screens where you can watch just about every sporting event imaginable live, and there's room to stretch out while you do (and plenty to snack on off that expansive menu). But on the rare occasion when there's nothing to catch on television, you can watch all the action as suburbanites meet, greet, eat and possibly cheat. Or you can just gaze off to the west at that stunning view of the mountains, from both the ground-floor windows and the rooftop deck. Bonus: When you leave this ViewHouse, you don't have to worry about running into the LoDo let-out crowds.

Readers' choice: Blake Street Tavern

Best Sports Bar for Playing Games

Blake Street Tavern

The winner and still the champ! Since 2003, Blake Street Tavern has been scoring big with sports-bar fans — and the best got better when Blake Street opened Underground Social, the ultimate solution for a big basement space that now features its own bar, jukebox and photo booth, along with plenty of games: shuffleboard, ping-pong, darts, cornhole, Giant Jenga, Giant Connect 4 and many more. Of course, there are big-screen TVs down here, too, in case you want to watch games as well as play them. And upstairs, Blake Street remains as accommodating as ever, with another game arcade, private rooms that groups can claim for watching their favorite sporting events, big booths and tables that are perfect spots for taking on some of the big offerings on the menu — like the green chile cheeseburger and the Blake Street nachos — and a huge rectangular bar from which you can catch the action on TV, or just around the rest of the room. Score!

Readers' choice: The 1up

Best Sports Bar for Food and Drink

Highland Tap & Burger

When Highland Tap & Burger opened in September 2010, it was a sports lover's secret spot for catching a game. Not only could you walk in and grab a seat at the bar (where there are five TVs alone) or a table without a hassle, but the staff was more than willing to tune in to whichever obscure sporting event you were searching for. But word soon got out about the Tap's top-notch burgers, sinful bacon-topped mac and cheese, and standout smoky Stranahan's wings with a sticky, crackling glaze perfect for nibbling on with one of the bar's many local beers. These days, the joint is always hopping, and often too crowded for people who like to watch games in relative quiet — but for most fans, that crowd just means more friends to help you cheer on the home team. There may be better bars for watching a pitcher's every move or capturing the hushed whisper of the Masters at Augusta, but you won't find a better menu at any of this town's other sports-crazed bars.

Readers' choice: Highland Tap & Burger

Best Old-School Summer Night

Lakeside Amusement Park

There is no place in this state quite like Lakeside Amusement Park. On a perfect Colorado summer evening, a stroll through the grounds reveals a gathering place shaded by mature trees and lit by thousands of twinkling bulbs, all accentuated by the sounds of the rattling Cyclone roller coaster and a chorus of happy screams and hollers. The turn-of-the-century amusement park wears its age well and with pride. From Victorian-era buildings to the art-deco additions of the '30s, Lakeside is just as much a place for fun as it is a home for those who appreciate beautiful historic architecture.

Best Summer Activity on a Ski Slope

High Mountain Ropes Challenge Course at Adventure Ridge

As the snow melts, Vail's Adventure Ridge swaps out tubing, ski biking and a kids' snowmobile course for zipline tours, a climbing wall, a primo disc-golf course and other activities. The best of these is a pair of ropes challenge courses. You'll start with a ground-school lesson to make sure you know how to operate the can't-fall, can't-fail harness system, then spend thirty minutes up in the air on the North Course or sixty minutes on the more challenging South Course, quivering in that harness as you attempt to traverse a series of increasingly difficult obstacles. Don't sweat it when some adventurous little girl shows you up. Happens all the time.

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